Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ESSEX COUNTY COUNCIL BILL

Read the Third time, and passed.

GLOUCESTER CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

Read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

[Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified]

SOUTHEND-ON-SEA CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

BERKSHIRE COUNTY COUNCIL BILL [Lords]

BRISTOL CORPORATION (GENERAL POWERS) BILL [Lords]

IPSWICH DOCK BILL [Lords]

TRENT AND LINCOLNSHIRE WATER BILL [Lords]

Read a Second time and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — SOCIAL SERVICES

Drug Users (Treatment)

Mr. Fowler: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has for improving facilities for the treatment and after care of drug users.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Michael Alison): I am not aware of inadequacies in treatment facilities. As regards rehabilitation, we plan to continue implementing the advice in the report of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence.

Mr. Fowler: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Is the number of drug users treated by the drug dependence clinics rising or falling? Is any study being made of compulsory treatment for addicts?

Mr. Alison: The latter point is being considered. Our information is that the numbers treated are rising steadily but so far have not filled out all the places available.

Mr. Speaker: Mrs. Short. The hon. Lady's Question was answered with this one.

Mrs. Renée Short: The Minister did not say so.

Mr. Speaker: Very well. We will come back to it.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: Will the Minister confirm that the numbers going to treatment clinics are rising slowly and that the rise is a very small one? Will he consider looking into such facilities as those offered by the Phoenix House experiment—that is, a very stern hostel régime—as well as the possibility of compulsory treatment?

Mr. Alison: The figures are rising slowly, but they are rising. I will consider the suggestion contained in the second part of the hon. Lady's supplementary question.

Mrs. Renée Short: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what


proposals he has for increasing hostel accommodation for patients after hospital treatment for drug addiction.

Mr. Alison: We plan to continue implementing the advice in the report of the Advisory Committee on Drug Dependence.

Mrs. Short: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there is absolutely no point in treating drug addicts in hospital and then sending them straight back to the environment where they learned to become drug addicts, and that they need some sort of bridging facilities? Will he look carefully at the amount of money which his Department is giving both to hospitals and to voluntary organisations and see whether he can be rather more generous so that more hostel places are provided?

Mr. Alison: I take the point about the necessity of establishing a continuum in this field. We are up to the standards which the Advisory Committee advised in regard to after-care treatment. The hon. Lady will appreciate that this is an extremely time-consuming operation and it really needs one-person-to-one-person attention to secure the full rehabilitation of a patient who has been cleared of addiction.

Mr. Blenkinsop: Could the hon. Gentleman make clear to local authorities the Government's continuing interest in encouraging any schemes, often suitable voluntary schemes, for hostel provision of this sort?

Mr. Alison: This point is covered in our negotiations and discussions with local authorities.

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems about the opening of these hostels is that local authorities misunderstand their purpose, and could he do his best to bring to their attention what they are used for?

Mr. Alison: This is still experimental work, but we are co-operating closely with local authorities in this respect.

Battered Babies

Mr. Cronin: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what further consideration he has given to the problem of babies and small children who receive

serious injuries as the result of assaults by their parents, in view of the frequency of these cases.

Mr. Alison: Further action will depend on the results of the examination of the reports which local authorities were requested to make by 1st October on the steps they have taken to deal with the problem.

Mr. Cronin: Will the Under-Secretary bear in mind that the N.S.P.C.C. alone receives notification of 35 to 40 new cases a month, a fourfold increase, and that doctors are not co-operating as well as they should? Therefore, will the Minister intensify steps to secure the increased co-operation of the medical profession and also talk to the Home Secretary and avoid ill-advised police action, as this is primarily a medical and sociological problem?

Mr. Alison: I agree with the specific point made in the last part of the hon. Gentleman's supplementary question. My Department has taken all possible steps to stimulate consultation and the involvement of local medical and other professions and, indeed, the police, where necessary, in the areas on the ground where this problem primarily arises. We shall do everything we can to assist in the diminution of this terrible phenomenon.

Abortions

Mr. Selwyn Gummer: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many abortions have now taken place in National Health Service hospitals since the passing of the Abortion Act; and how many hours of surgeons' time this represents.

Mr. Alison: Up to 28th October, 1970, 84,764. Information on surgeons' time is not available.

Mr. Gummer: Does not this mean that the operation of the Abortion Act has the incidental effect of holding up the opportunities of people who need not desperately urgent operations but operations which will help them because otherwise they will be in pain? In view of this, do we not need an investigation into the operation of the Act as soon as possible?

Mr. Alison: As to the first part of the supplementary question, the effect varies from region to region. As to the second part, I ask my hon. Friend to await the statement which my right hon. Friend hopes to make in due course.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: The Secretary of State said on 13th July that he would not be extending the licences for any private nursing clinics after the end of this year and that he would be studying all the facts. Can the Under-Secretary assure the House that we shall have the statement before the House rises for the Christmas Recess?

Mr. Alison: That is a separate question. I cannot give any assurance upon the precise timing of my right hon. Friend's announcement.

Doctors (Pay)

Mr. Sillars: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what recent representations he has received from the British Medical Association about doctors' remuneration; and what reply he has given.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir K. Joseph): Recent representations have been mainly concerned with the new Review Body and I am discussing these with the profession's representatives.

Mr. Sillars: As the Secretary of State is widely acknowledged to be the most capable member of the present Cabinet, can he tell us why, having topped up the doctors' pay increase to 20 per cent. earlier in the year, the Government have spent the rest of the year attacking the lower-paid workers who have been much less ambitious than the doctors?

Sir K. Joseph: That was a very bad introduction by the hon. Gentleman and not the same as the Question on the Order Paper.

Pensioners (Supplementary Benefits)

Mr. Sillars: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what further representations he has now received from pensioners' organisation about the present level of supplementary benefits.

Sir K. Joseph: I have recently met two deputations. Both discussed with me,

among other things, the present level of supplementary pensions.

Mr. Sillars: The right hon. Gentleman is too modest. Is he aware that the Under-Secretary of State, his hon. Friend the Member for Somerset, North (Mr. Dean), obviously anticipating a Tory victory, forecast before the General Election that galloping price inflation would render the November supplementary benefit increases inadequate, and does he take this into consideration at the present stage?

Sir K. Joseph: It is sadly true that the inflation which we inherited is hurting, above all, the poorest and those on fixed incomes. It is some relief that there has very recently been an increase in supplementary benefits.

Mr. O'Malley: Since it is true, also, that the Government are not only doing nothing to control inflation but are positively encouraging it, does not the right hon. Gentleman think that he ought to go to the Treasury and urge for pensioners on supplementary benefit higher priority than that which is being accorded to the very wealthy, who are having the best treatment under the tax changes announced for next April?

Sir K. Joseph: That is quite another question.

European Economic Community

Mr. Deakins: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether, in view of Her Majesty's Government's acceptance of the provisions of the Treaty of Rome relating to free movement of labour he will discuss with the General Medical Council or other appropriate body the amendment of those rules which prescribe the necessary qualifications for the practice of medicine within the United Kingdom.

Sir K. Joseph: I assume the hon. Member has in mind the arrangements for registration of doctors. It is as yet premature to formulate amendments to these but we are in touch with the General Medical Council on the subject.

Mr. Deakins: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that in the event of Britain joining the Common Market the standards of medical practice in this country required of foreign


doctors who will be allowed to practise here, in both independent and general practice, will be at least the equivalent of those required of United Kingdom doctors?

Sir K. Joseph: The purpose of the discussions going on in Common Market countries is to unify registration qualifications. We shall be watching those discussions carefully in order to protect the national interest.

Occupational Pension Rights (Transfer)

Sir B. Rhys Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he will take to ensure that occupational pension rights are fully protected on changes of employment by the beneficiary.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): We are preparing detailed proposals for legislation on the preservation of occupational pension rights.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Will my hon. Friend remember that, according to the best estimates, people who change their jobs are losing their pension rights at the rate of at least £1 million every week; and will he ensure that legislation on this matter is brought in very soon, and not, perhaps, in 1972?

Mr. Dean: I assure my hon. Friend that it will be done as quickly as possible. In the meantime, I hope that the growing good practice of occupational pensions schemes in providing for preservation will continue, backed up, I hope, by my hon. Friend's efforts.

Mr. O'Malley: Will the hon. Gentleman assure the House that the Government intend to honour the statements which they made in the previous Parliament regarding the preservation of occupational pensions, and, further, will he ensure that the pension thus preserved will be at least as good as that provided by the residual pension, and that the residual pension also will be at a high level?

Mr. Dean: I assure the hon. Gentleman that we are as enthusiastic about this in government as we were in opposition.

Pensioners (Earnings Rule)

Sir B. Rhys Williams: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will now take steps to end the earnings rule for pensioners.

Mr. Dean: No, Sir. The earnings rule for retirement pensioners is, however, one of the aspects of social security included in the Government's consideration of the reconstruction of the national insurance scheme.

Sir B. Rhys Williams: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is important that the basis of the Welfare State should be not need but entitlement based on either contributions or status; and that therefore to operate an earnings rule is entirely against the spirit of the Welfare State as understood on this side of the House?

Mr. Dean: My hon. Friend has gone a little wide of the Question, but I assure the House that we are committed to improving the earnings rule, and we shall certainly do that.

Mr. Lipton: But is the hon. Gentleman aware that if under the existing regulation a retirement pensioner over the age of 70 is still employed, his employer has to pay £3 6s. 11d. a week for a stamp, and this is a penal imposition on any employer who wishes to carry on employing older people?

Mr. Dean: But I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will realise that there is no earnings rule there and, therefore, there is a substantial encouragement on the part of the employee.

Family Allowances

Mr. Moyle: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he proposes to extend the payment of children's allowance to the first child.

Mr. Dean: No, Sir. The Family Income Supplements Bill will provide help where it is needed for low-income families, including those with only one child.

Mr. Moyle: Is not the present situation anomalous in that some people have income tax relief in respect of their first child?

Mr. Dean: The real point is that in regard to the poorest families in the land


we have found in the Bill both the quickest and the best way of bringing speedy help.

Nursing Staff (Assaults)

Mr. Cronin: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what further action he is taking to reduce the incidence of assaults by violent patients on the nursing staff looking after them.

Sir K. Joseph: Adequate staffing, good conditions and an active therapeutic regime in hospitals is the best safeguard. The extra money for psychiatric services will help hospitals to make faster progress towards these objectives. My Department is co-operating with the National Association of Mental Health and professional bodies in preparing advice for nurses who look after difficult and disturbed patients.

Mr. Cronin: Could the right hon. Gentleman ensure that more effective measures are taken to segregate and control violent patients, and will he impress upon psychiatrists that although their first duty is to their patients, they have an important second duty; namely, to protect nursing and other staff from these hazards?

Sir K. Joseph: Regional hospital boards are being helped by the extra money to reduce the overcrowding which makes the handling of patients of this sort particularly difficult. I agree with the point made by the hon. Gentleman in the second part of his supplementary question.

Dental Charges

Mr. Boyden: asked the Secretary of State for the Social Services what representations he has received from medical organisations on the effect of the new dental charges on the dental health of the population.

Sir K. Joseph: The only medical organisation from which I have received correspondence is the Socialist Medical Association. I met representatives of the British Dental Asociation on 23rd November.

Mr. Boyden: That must represent the whole of the medical profession, but the others have not written in. If the right hon. Gentleman cannot get off the Treasury hook as regards the general

principle, will he at least have another thought about lowering the age of exemption from 21 to 18?

Sir K. Joseph: That proposal will have to be the subject of legislation, and there will be ample opportunity to discuss it then.

Sir G. Nabarro: What would not be the subject of legislation would be to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer to do something about purchase tax. Is my right hon. Friend aware that, for example, a toothbrush is free of purchase tax whereas dentifrice and toothpaste is subject to tax at 36⅔ per cent.? Will he persuade the Chancellor to rid toothpaste and dentifrice of purchase tax, thereby making a much more direct contribution to dental health?

Sir K. Joseph: That point is strongly made to me by the British Dental Association.

Sir G. Nabarro: I wish that my right hon. Friend would back it up.

Dr. Summerskill: Will the right hon. Gentleman keep in mind that the British Dental Association regards these increased charges as a serious threat to the dental health of the nation and a definite deterrent to people who might seek treatment? Will he tell the House what will be the maximum charge for treatment under the new provisions?

Sir K. Joseph: The maximum charge for treatment will be not more than £10. I know that the British Dental Association did hold the view which the hon. Lady has expressed. I hope that it will hold it less strongly after our discussion.

Hospital Casualty Services (Staff)

Mr. Boyden: asked the Secretary of State for the Social Services what action he is taking to overcome the shortage of medical officers in the hospital casualty service.

Sir. K. Joseph: I have nothing as yet to add to my reply on 10th November to the hon. Member for South Shields (Mr. Blenkinsop).—[Vol. 806, c. 81.]

Mr. Boyden: Has the right hon. Gentleman held consultations with the service medical departments? Is he aware that he might find some possibilities there of easing the situation? Will he look at this?

Sir K. Joseph: Yes, Sir.

Mr. Conlan: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the casualty department service in Gateshead is likely to break down unless new medical staff can be rapidly recruited?

Sir K. Joseph: I will make special inquiries.

Pension Books

Mr. Crawshaw: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will standardise the shape and size of pension books.

Mr. Dean: From July, 1971, retirement pension and supplementary pension order books will be of a standard size.

Mr. Crawshaw: May I thank the hon. Gentleman for that assurance? Is he aware that in the past this has involved pensioners in extra expense when they have had to purchase different wallets for their pension books?

Mr. Dean: I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman. There are only two sizes of order books now, and the reason for the change-over is that the order books to which he was referring are now computer-produced.

Death Grant (Stillborn Children)

Dr. Gilbert: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will take steps to introduce a form of death grant with respect to stillborn children.

Mr. Dean: No, Sir. We adhere to the view which has always been held that this would not be appropriate.

Dr. Gilbert: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I am rather disappointed at that reply? Would he think again about this, bearing in mind that there are only 10,000 of these sad cases every year and, therefore, the payment of a death grant at the full infant rate would only amount to about 100,000? Would he not accept that the degree of distress to the woman in these cases is just as great as if the infant had survived for only a few days and then died?

Mr. Dean: I am sure the House will sympathise with the parents of stillborn

children but the fact is that in the priorities which we must set the cost of a funeral in these cases is substantially less than in the case of young children.

Prescription Charges

Mr. Clinton Davis: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what representations have been made to him by the Psychiatric Rehabilitation Association consequent upon the proposals of Her Majesty's Government to increase prescription charges; and what reply he has sent.

Sir K. Joseph: I have received a letter from the association. The reply from my Department refers to the Government's general policy and to the improvements in services for psychiatric and elderly patients which the increases in charges will make possible, and indicates the arrangements for helping those in need with particular reference to the mentally ill.

Mr. Davis: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the very grave disquiet which has been expressed by the P.R.A. in that, because of the nature of the illness of the chronic mentally sick, these patients tend not to apply for exemptions which are available; that they are completely defeated by form-filling; and invariably they are in low-paid jobs and neglect to obtain the necessary medication, which frequently results in a relapse? Would he investigate afresh the exemptions that are available?

Sir K. Joseph: I have investigated them. I cannot undertake to do it again at the moment. I will undertake that in the new take-up campaign that will take place next year I will bear the hon. Gentleman's point strongly in mind.

Dr. Summerskill: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will undertake a review of the categories of people who qualify for exemption from prescription charges.

Mr. George Cunningham: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will introduce legislation to exempt from prescription charges women under 65 years of age whose husbands are over 65 years of age.

Mr. Bowden: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will consider the preparation of a list of life-saving drugs with a view to their exclusion from prescription charges.

Mr. Alison: We are not at present contemplating any change in the existing exemption arrangements, which in our view are fully adequate for preventing hardship.

Dr. Summerskill: Would the hon. Gentleman exempt from prescription charges women over 60, which is the retirement pension age, rather than those over 65? Would he exempt those who are not included in the restricted list of chronic sick but who nevertheless require long-term continuous treatment?

Mr. Alison: I am afraid that I must say "no" to the hon. Lady. There is no evidence that women between the ages of 60 and 65 are more liable to ill health than men of the same age. Indeed, they are in better health for the most part nowadays than at any other time in the past.

Mr. George Cunningham: Does the hon. Gentleman recognise that this is not the problem? Is he aware that the problem is that families living on retirement pensions and having to bear the burden of prescription charges at present levels will have to bear the burden of the prescription charges at the new and higher levels? Will he look at this again with a view to announcing changes in these rules as from next April when the charges go up?

Mr. Alison: We are satisfied that the very wide range of exemptions and possibilities of refund cover all areas where real hardship is likely. We do not believe that a further review is necessary.

Mr. Bob Brown: Will the hon. Gentleman consider ridding the registered disabled of prescription charges?

Mr. Alison: The registered disabled can either be already exempt if they fall within the specified medical categories or they can get the extremely useful season ticket, which is now a better bargain.

Maternity and Child Welfare Centre, Manchester

Mr. Charles R. Morris: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will take action to ensure that the Manchester City Council proceeds without delay in replacing the hazardous building serving mothers and children in the Newton Heath area of Manchester as a maternity and child welfare centre.

Mr. Alison: I understand that the Manchester City Council hopes to be able to replace this building, which it does not regard as hazardous, in the financial year 1974–75.

Mr. Morris: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that that reply is wholly unsatisfactory? Is he aware that expectant mothers in my constituency have been obliged to use this building, which they regard as drab, inadequate and positively hazardous, for far too long and consider that it ought to be replaced quickly and urgently?

Mr. Alison: The city council disputes the allegation of hazard. It has a large number of claims on its resources. It will be providing four health centres and a clinic in this area in the programme covering the years 1971–72 and 1973–74.

School Milk

Mrs. Doris Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what extra financial benefit will be paid to families who receive payment under the Supplementary Benefits Scheme to enable children to purchase school milk.

Mr. Dean: None, Sir. The scale rates paid in respect of children under the supplementary benefits scheme are intended to keep them well nourished. Free school milk will still be provided for all children in nursery schools and classes and special schools, and in primary schools up to the end of the school year in which their seventh birthday falls. It will also be provided for children up to 12 who need it on medical grounds.

Mrs. Fisher: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that there are many people,


including widows, who have young children and who do not spend their money on booze but who look after these children? Is he aware that taking free milk away from those between seven and 11 will cause real suffering and bring about a loss of nutrition?

Mr. Dean: As I have said, this is provided for in the scale rates. In addition, expectant mothers and children under five will still get free milk tokens, and there are special additions when special diets are needed, so that the medical needs of these children will be fully taken care of in the arrangements we have introduced.

Dr. Summerskill: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why milk is necessary for the healthy growth of a child up to the age of seven but after that it is apparently unnecessary? Would he accept that we on this side consider this particular measure to be harmful and ill considered?

Mr. Dean: I do not claim to be a nutrition expert but I think the hon. Lady will agree that it is at the younger ages when this milk is particularly required, and we are carrying out what seem to be the realistic priorities in this matter.

Mr. Martin: Does my hon. Friend recall that after 1951 there was a similar outcry from the Labour Party about the abolition of orange juice?

Mr. Dean: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding the House of that.

Mr. Marks: Is it not true that the three- or four-year-old who is fortunate enough to go to nursery school or to be in a nursery class will get free milk whereas the three- or four-year-old who stays at home with mother will not? Should not this anomaly be sorted out?

Mr. Dean: If the children are in nursery schools they will still get free milk. That is the intention. As I have said, children under five and their mothers will still have the provision which we have made available.

War Disability Pensions

Mr. Charles R. Morris: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services whether he will now increase the current rates of war disability pensions.

Mr. Kaufman: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what plans he has for increasing war disability pensions.

Mr. Dean: The Goverment gave a firm undertaking in another place on 23rd July, 1970, to preserve the tradition of giving special treatment to war pensioners and their widows and to review the rates of war pensions and allowances at two-yearly intervals in the light of economic growth and the cost of living. The last increase was in November, 1969.

Mr. Morris: Is the Minister aware that many disabled pensioners who have given so much in service to the nation have a right to expect that their pensions should have regard to the galloping inflation which is a feature of life under this Government?

Mr. Dean: We recognise the special debt to those who were disabled in the service of their country but I cannot add to what my right hon. Friend has told the House earlier.

Mr. Kaufman: Does the hon. Gentleman realise that this is not good enough, that since this Government came to power, because of the fall in the value of money, the 100 per cent. disability pension for people in my constituency has fallen by 3s. 6d.? Since the Government have given notice to the people in high income brackets that they are to benefit from a bonanza because of the reduction of income tax, ought they not to tell these much more deserving people that they will have their increase at a stroke?

Mr. Dean: The reduction of income tax is not for me and it is certainly irrelevant to this Question. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Those in most need have been helped by the increase in supplementary benefits which came into operation in the early part of November.

Mr. Ridsdale: Is it not a fact that the fall in the value of money since June has been 5d. whereas during the six years of Labour rule the fall in the value of money was 6s. in the £?

Mr. Dean: There is no doubt that the reason why we are suffering difficulty, particularly those on fixed incomes, is the


total failure of the party opposite to control our economy.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise that according to the figures given by his own Department the position of pensioners next November, unless something is done—and this includes war disability pensioners—will be worse than at any time since February, 1965, when my Government brought in the largest ever increases?

Mr. Dean: My right hon. Friend has said that there will be a review next year which will take into account the economic changes and the rise in prices.

Gynaecological Beds

Mrs. Doris Fisher: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what is the number of gynaecological beds available, region by region, with the population comparison.

GYNAECOLOGICAL BEDS PER 1,000 POPULATION—BY REGION 1969


Hospital Regions
Gynaecological beds available at 31st December 1969
Estimated mid-year 1969 population (figures in 1,000's)
Ratio number gynaecological beds per 1,000 population


1. Newcastle
…
…
…
…
772
3,095·6
0·25


2. Leeds
…
…
…
…
…
726
3,220·7
0·23


3. Sheffield
…
…
…
…
793
4,641·1
0·17


4. East Anglia
…
…
…
…
241
1,734·8
0·14


5. North West Metropolitan
…
…
1,198
4,188·6
0·29


6. North East Metropolitan
…
…
889
3,399·9
0·26


7. South East Metropolitan
…
…
770
3,556·2
0·22


8. South West Metropolitan
…
…
806
3,258·8
0·25


9. Oxford
…
…
…
…
348
1,937·1
0·18


10. South Western
…
…
…
501
3,115·5
0·16


11. Birmingham
…
…
…
…
901
5,144·8
0·18


12. Manchester
…
…
…
…
1,017
4,560·7
0·22


13. Liverpool
…
…
…
…
573
2,263·1
0·25


14. Wessex
…
…
…
…
377
1,985·4
0·19


National Average England and Wales
…
10,908
48,826
0·22

Unemployment Benefit

Mr. Booth: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services how many persons are currently unemployed and unable to receive unemployment benefit as a result of their period of unemployment having exceeded 312 days.

Mr. Dean: Of the 606,000 people registered as unemployed on 3rd August, 1970, 126,000 had exhausted their entitlement to unemployment benefit. 87,000 of these were, however, getting an allowance under the supplementary benefits scheme.

Mr. Booth: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that to deny 126,000 unemployed persons entitlement to un-

Mr. Alison: As the answer consists of a table with figures, I will, if I may, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mrs. Fisher: I thank the hon. Gentleman, and I shall be glad to receive the list. Will he accept that a large number of women are on hospital waiting lists for various forms of surgery? Does not he agree that this means not only pain and suffering for these women but also a loss of productive man hours because many husbands lose time at work in caring for their wives and families in these circumstances?

Mr. Alison: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the care and concern she has about this subject. There is pressure on the hospitals for gynaecological beds but we hope that the extra resources we are making available to them will enable some inroads to be made on waiting lists.

Following are the figures:

employment benefit is to make a mockery of the unemployment benefit system? Will he consider introducing amending legislation so that anyone who is unemployed and seeking work can obtain unemployment benefit?

Mr. Dean: For many years now it has been the practice in our National Insurance arrangements that unemployment benefit should be primarily for the short term, for the change between jobs. Supplementary benefit arrangements are the most suitable for those who have long-term unemployment, who very often need additional help as well.

Mrs. Knight: Is my hon. Friend aware that there is strong antipathy among the


public towards the notion, that a person should be able to receive unemployment benefit for 10 or 12 months at a time unless there is a very good reason indeed why they should not be in work?

Mr. Dean: It is for that reason that we feel that unemployment benefit is appropriate for what it has always been intended—primarily for loss of earnings by people moving from one job to another.

Mrs. Williams: Will the hon. Gentleman tell the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) that since gentlemen and ladies pay insurance in order to be covered for unemployment it would be incorrect to take the attitude she is advocating?

Mr. Dean: There is nothing incorrect in what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Mrs. Knight) said. She is quite right to be concerned to ensure that the money which is paid by employees and their employers into this scheme is used in the best possible way.

Mr. Pentland: In what part of the country are the 126,000 people?

Mr. Dean: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman that information without notice. If he will put down a Question, I will try to answer it.

Mr. Hiley: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will introduce legislation to repeal Section 49(1) of the National Insurance Act, 1965 which precludes the payment of unemployment benefit for periods spent abroad in search of eventual employment in this country.

Sir K. Joseph: No, Sir.

Mr. Hiley: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that in future there will be a greater likelihood of men going abroad in search of employment? Does he not agree that it fits more closely with Conservative principles for men who have the guts and enterprise to go abroad to look for a job to be encouraged rather than discouraged from doing so?

Sir K. Joseph: I agree that we want to encourage initiative, but my hon. Friend must realise that availability for employment is the essence of the unemployment benefit, and when a person is abroad it is

hard to maintain that he is really available for employment.

Mr. Hiley: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I shall be forced to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

Mines Dispute (Supplementary Benefits)

Mr. Eadie: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what was the total cost to public funds of supplementary benefits for the families of miners involved in the recent industrial dispute; and if he will list the cost in each area.

Mr. Dean: As the reply consists of a table of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Eadie: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that allegations are coming from the coal fields that his Ministry is being fairly bloody-minded about giving benefits that people think should be legitimately given? Will he give a categoric assurance that he will not be responsible for wives and children of miners suffering because of the sort of ideological baying one gets from his hon. Friends when one mentions miners?

Mr. Dean: I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Department looks very sympathetically at these cases. There is no intention that wives and children should suffer when men are on strike. Equally, we are right to take account of the disquiet on this matter expressed both in the House and in the country.

Following is the information:


COALMINING DISPUTE AUTUMN 1970—SUPPLEMENTARY BENEFIT PAYMENTS



Payments to dependents during dispute
Payments after return to work*



£
£


Yorkshire and Humberside
146,148
176,301


Wales
88,933
16,446


Scotland
14,813
61,142


West Midlands
16
640


London South
34
1,177


Northern
4,200
15,100


East Midlands
—
2,102



254,144
272,908


Note: All figures may be subject to revision in the light of final returns.


* Figures to 24th November, 1970.

Retirement Pension

Mr. Eadie: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what reply he has sent to the Scottish retirement pensioners' request for an immediate increase in pensions.

Mr. Dean: I am sending the hon. Member a copy of my reply.

Mr. Eadie: Surely the hon. Gentleman must concede that there is great public concern at the present time—[Interruption.]—about the whole question of pensions provision? This is shown by the fact that a tremendous amount of public demonstration is going on at the present time. [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. Mr. Eadie. Question.

Mr. Eadie: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some hon. Members opposite apparently do not like to be questioned.
Does not the Under-Secretary of State agree that, since the cost of living is increasing and there is mounting concern, he should bring in a Bill for an immediate pension increase? I am sure that we on this side would expedite the passage of the Bill.

Mr. Dean: We are all suffering from the effects of the inflation which was the responsibility of the Labour Government, which they failed to cure but which we are determined to cure.

Mr. Bidwell: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will estimate the cost of an increase of £2 per week per couple to all retirement state pensioners, husband and dependent wife.

Mr. Dean: £160 million without allowing for increases to other retirement pensioners or accompanying changes in other benefits.

Mr. Bidwell: Would not the Minister agree that figures of this kind can never tell the whole story? As there are always considerable offsetting advantages in a substantial increase of the basic retirement pension and as we have had inflation under both parties and as it may take some time for the Government to cure inflation, should not old-age pensioners

have an increase immediately, before Christmas?

Mr. Dean: The hon. Gentleman has asked me for one figure. The figure for all pensions and other benefits would be over £600 million, which would mean a substantial increase in the contributions of both employers and employees. None the less, I repeat the pledge of this Administration that the pension rate will be reviewed next year.

Family Income Supplement

Mr. Ashley: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what specific steps he is taking to inform all those persons who are entitled to family income supplement about their rights; and what particular efforts he is making to encourage these people to take advantage of the supplement.

Sir K. Joseph: I am planning an intensive publicity campaign beginning in the spring in which I shall seek the co-operation of social workers and others active in this field.

Mr. Ashley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the family income supplement is a pathetic substitute for a real policy on poverty? How is this publicity campaign different from the previous one, on means-tested benefits, which has failed to attract many people to claim the benefits?

Sir K. Joseph: We are determined to do better in securing increased take-up than the previous Administration. I suggest that the hon. Gentleman waits until he sees our publicity campaign in the spring.

Cancer Research

Mr. Ashley: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will offer special assistance to those British consultants who are evaluating new methods of treating cancer.

Sir K. Joseph: The Medical Research Council and my Department both support research on methods of treating cancer. Proposals are adjudged on their scientific merits.

Mr. Ashley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Dr. Issels' methods have


not been proved scientifically but that a number of leading British cancer specialists have recommended that they be investigated? In order to assess whether a new medical discovery has been made or whether false hopes have been raised, will he conduct an inquiry into these methods?

Sir K. Joseph: The question of an inquiry will be considered by the Joint Co-ordinating Committee for Cancer Research, on which the Medical Research Council is represented, as soon as the details of Dr. Issels' treatment have been published and studied.

Dr. Miller: Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that in the conquering of this horrible disease one must not disregard any kind of method no matter how outlandish it may seem? In the interest of attempting to find a cure, should it not be made clear to the public that money should be made available for the investigation of any method which might lead to a cure?

Sir K. Joseph: Certainly. I am sure that the medical profession would agree that every possible method must be investigated, but there must be a scientific discussion of the method before it can be studied, and that is what the medical profession is waiting for.

Sir R. Cary: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the famous Christie Hospital and the Holt Radium Institute in my constituency have not yet received details of this new form of treatment?

Sir K. Joseph: Yes, and I gather that details are eagerly awaited in many parts of the world.

Dr. Summerskill: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that although millions of pounds are raised by charities each year for research into the treatment of cancer, there is still a lack of money because of the expense of the equipment required?

Sir K. Joseph: The Medical Research Council, which is not my responsibility, and my Department both support a considerable amount of cancer research and I should be grateful to know whether there is any difficulty in investigating Dr. Issels's methods, once they are known—I am sure there will not be—for lack of money.

South Shields (Hospital Provision)

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what steps he is taking to speed up new hospital building in South Shields.

Mr. Alison: An out-patient department costing £½ million has already been completed. The regional hospital board plans to start a psychiatric unit next year, and is planning the next phase, consisting mainly of a maternity department and costing over £¾ million.

Mr. Blenkinsop: As the Minister has promised further developments in hospital building, especially in development areas such as South Shields, may we not have rather faster movement towards the completion of these new units, which have been in preparation for some time?

Mr. Alison: I have referred to the planning aspect. The next phase is expected to be in hand and even completed well before the mid-1970s, and the extra resources which we are making available to hospitals will tend to expedite the matter.

South Shields (Mental Health Services)

Mr. Blenkinsop: asked the Secretary of State for Social Services what action he is taking to improve the mental health services in South Shields.

Mr. Alison: For the mentally ill 32 beds have recently been added to Cherry Knowle Hospital, and work on a new 34-bed unit at South Shields General Hospital is planned to start next April. A small unit for the mentally handicapped at South Shields General has been replaced by better, new accommodation at Earls House, Durham. My Department is to discuss further developments with the regional hospital board and the local authority in the light of the Government's decision that more resources should be allocated to mental health.

Mr. Blenkinsop: I welcome the signs of concern which have already been expressed. Will the Minister do all he can to speed up provision, because there is some anxiety about the position in the area?

Mr. Alison: Yes, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

Mr. Kaufman: asked the Prime Minister what plans he now has for further discussions with the Prime Ministers of the countries of the European Economic Community.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Edward Heath): Various arrangements are now in train, but no dates have yet been fixed.

Mr. Kaufman: When the Prime Minister takes part in such talks, will he take the opportunity of discussing with the Prime Ministers of the Six the curious anomaly which would arise under Article 48 of the Treaty of Rome if we were to enter the Common Market; namely, that workers from the Six would have freedom of movement into Great Britain, whereas workers in Great Britain would have to have a work permit to go and work in Northern Ireland? Will he further take—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—the opportunity of denying circumstantial Press reports that his Government intend to create a further anomaly by imposing restrictions on workers from the Republic of Ireland coming into this country?

The Prime Minister: My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary dealt with the last point in last week's debate on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned an anomaly of which I was not aware. I am perfectly prepared to look into it, but these are matters which should be dealt with by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the negotiations themselves, rather than at Prime Ministerial level during an official visit.

Mr. Pentland: In the Prime Minister's discussions, will he take note of the recent declaration of intent by the leaders of the Community to move towards full political unification with a federal union and a supra-national parliament? Does he not therefore think that the time has now arrived when he should state what would be the Government's position towards these long-term objectives of the Six?

The Prime Minister: The Six have stated that they are now preparing for a series of discussions about political

subjects in which they can co-ordinate their own affairs more closely. They have already had a meeting about that, and tomorrow there will be a meeting of the Six and the four applicants for membership to discuss international affairs and related matters. We believe that this is a helpful development. I have always said that I should like to see this carried further. As for future policies, if we became a member of the Community we should have a full voice in its development and exactly the same rights as any other member country.

Mr. Chichester-Clarke: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the word "anomaly", used by the hon. Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), was a wrong description of the position, and that in Northern Ireland we should be glad to see it go once full employment was established?

The Prime Minister: I appreciate the point made by my hon. Friend.

Oral Answers to Questions — RHODESIA

Mr. Molloy: asked the Prime Minister what plans he now has for discussions with the leader of the illegal régime of Rhodesia.

The Prime Minister: None, Sir.

Mr. Molloy: Nevertheless, as the Prime Minister has always condemned racialism and apartheid, in view of the development of this evil practice in Rhodesia is he prepared to consider a public statement condemning it outright, thereby striking against the evil people who are advocating it and encouraging the civilised people in Rhodesia who are opposed to it?

The Prime Minister: The people of Rhodesia should know exactly my views about these matters, and they are the views of my party. I regret the introduction of anything which increases racial discrimination and racial tension.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman will know that the Opposition applaud the statement of the Foreign Secretary and the Government that there will be no settlement which does not fit four-square within the five principles. Has he been studying the new legislation reported to be introduced into the


Rhodesian Parliament by the régime there? Would he recognise that this is a further breach, a very clear breach, of principle 4 dealing with non-discrimination between races, and as such can be taken only as a further act of contempt towards further negotiations?

The Prime Minister: I would not go as far as the right hon. Gentleman has just gone in the last part of what he said. I do not think that this in any way removes the need to make a further attempt to enter into negotiations with Mr. Smith and the régime on the five principles to see whether it is possible to deal with these matters.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRAZIL (VISIT)

Mr. Peter Archer: asked the Prime Minister if he will seek to make an official visit to Brazil.

The Prime Minister: I have at present no plans to do so.

Mr. Archer: Will the Prime Minister find another method of indicating to the Brazilian Government public disquiet in this country at the near-extinction of the Indian minority and the number of people imprisoned in Brazil simply because they disagree with the Government, or does the right hon. Gentleman accept no responsibility for international human rights obligations?

The Prime Minister: The Brazilian Government must be well aware of the reports which have appeared in the Press in this country and the attitude which has been taken on them, but it is a matter for which the Brazilian Government themselves must answer.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH IMMIGRATION

Mr. Bidwell: asked the Prime Minister what plans he has to co-ordinate the work of Ministers responsible for Commonwealth immigration.

The Prime Minister: The existing arrangements work well, and I see no need to alter them.

Mr. Bidwell: Does the Prime Minister agree that to take away the right of children to join parents in this country

and possibly to direct coloured people to employment in this country is a most serious step to take with regard to Commonwealth people coming here to work and earn their bread and butter? Does he propose to list this at the forthcoming Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference?

The Prime Minister: I know of no plans by this Government to take away the rights of children of school age to come and join their parents here. There are no plans to direct immigrants here to employment. We have always made it plain that any legislation we introduce will not affect those already in this country. Those who wish to come here should do so for a particular job, in exactly the same way as anyone from outside the Commonwealth.

Oral Answers to Questions — INFLATION

Mr. Barnett: asked the Prime Minister if he will appoint a Minister with special responsibility for dealing with inflation.

The Prime Minister: No, Sir.

Mr. Barnett: The Prime Minister said last week that he agreed with Lord Hailsham when he said in another place that there was no inflation crisis. Does he disagree with the extravagant remarks of Lord Hailsham when he compared our inflation with the disease that destroyed the Weimar Republic? If he does not agree with his Cabinet colleague on that, will he make it quite clear to the House that he does not intend to use the money supply to increase bankruptcies and unemployment?

The Prime Minister: As I said, and as the hon. Gentleman has acknowledged, my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor said that there was no crisis in this country. I fully agree with that. My noble Friend added that inflation had proved the disease which brought down the Weimar Republic. I fully agree with that also. Every Government must be responsible for the control of the money supply through the central credit system, as were the Government which the hon. Gentleman supported.

Mr. Kenneth Lewis: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that one of our hon. Friends has just told us from the


Front Bench that it will cost £160 million to give the old-age pensioners an increase of £2 a week? Will he therefore make it clear to the trade unions and all who may be concerned that increasing wage demands are of no advantage to those on fixed incomes, and no help to the Government, who want to increase those incomes?

The Prime Minister: As the whole House has, I think, always recognised, inflationary wage demands always bear most severely on those who have retired and on the poorer members of the community.

Mr. Duffy: Is the Prime Minister aware that Britain is the only country within the O.E.C.D. in which inflation is still accelerating? Will he bear in mind last week's public statement by the Director-General of the National Economic Development Council that an expanded economy and not a crude Government squeeze on wages and prices is the only way to deal with the inflation problem?

The Prime Minister: I would be the first to acknowledge that growth has its own part to play in dealing with inflation. It must also be quite clear to the whole House that the level of growth which in the best possible circumstances can be obtained from the British economy cannot possibly compete with the scale of wage demands which are being made in some cases at present. This must be a fundamental fact. Therefore, what is required is an element of growth in the economy which should be as large as possible; but at the same time the economy must be brought into balance by other means, including all the techniques of monetary control and wage increases which are not inflationary.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: For the sake of historical accuracy, would my right hon. Friend draw the attention of our noble Friend, Lord Hailsham, to the fact that it was the deflation which followed the inflation that brought down the Weimar Republic?

The Prime Minister: A considerable number of factors were involved in the demise of the Weimar Republic.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Also on the subject of historical accuracy, since the right

hon. Gentleman is reported, I am sure unfairly, as attributing to Her Majesty's Opposition responsibility for supporting inflationary wage claims, to get it on the record, is he aware that the Leader of the Opposition in fact sent a direct message to the T.U.C. asking it by all means in its power to reject and frustrate the incomes policy of the Government approved by this House—and that this was done by the Leader of the Opposition in September, 1966?

The Prime Minister: I do not quite know what the present Leader of the Opposition is referring to. Is he referring to a message of his own which he sent to the T.U.C. asking it to fight inflation? I hope that in all the present circumstances he will always send messages to trade unions condemning every inflationary wage demand they make.

Mr. Harold Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman is aware of what I told him last week, both about the strikes and about the situation in South Wales. If he was not clear about my question, is he aware that a message was sent to the T.U.C. directly and in terms on the eve of Congress asking it to reject what this House had voted for in support of the prices and incomes policy of the then Government, and that the Leader of the Opposition who sent that message publicly was the present Prime Minister?

The Prime Minister: It is characteristic of the attention which the right hon. Gentleman pays to historical accuracy that that is a gross distortion of the truth.

Mr. Marten: Also as a question of historical accuracy, does my right hon. Friend recall that in 1951, which was the last year of the post-war Labour Administration, the retail price index rose by 12 per cent., and that by 1953, after two years of Conservative Government, it was down to 2½ per cent.? Is not that the sort of time-scale we should be looking at these days, instead of instant Government?

The Prime Minister: What my hon. Friend has said is absolutely true. But the Leader of the Opposition is not concerned with the historical accuracy of that period. What he is engaged upon is writing the authorised version of what happened in 1964–69.

Mr. Harold Wilson: Further to the interests of historical accuracy which that will serve, since the Prime Minister has now sought to repudiate what he said in 1966, will he publish the text in the OFFICIAL REPORT?

The Prime Minister: The text is already available for anyone who wants to see it. Unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I shall not have to go on to produce a revised version in three volumes in due course.

Mr. Thorpe: Does not the Prime Minister agree that since no post-war Government have yet evolved a realistic incomes policy tied to productivity, which is the only way to cure inflation, all these historical illusions from both sides of the House are as irrelevant to the problem of tackling inflation as they are to the affairs of the House?

The Prime Minister: I do not think that they are entirely irrelevant. It is true that all Governments have had to grapple with a complex of factors which in the post-war world of full employment have been leading up to an inflationary situation, but if we look at the rate of growth of inflation we see periods during which there was a decline, and it was gradually brought under control. I think that the right hon. Gentleman recognises that there is no easy short-cut answer to these questions. A complex of economic policies is required to deal with them. Policies on taxation, Government expenditure, industrial relations and wages are required if we are to grapple with them.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. For the sake of historical accuracy, Question Time is over.

Mr. Barnett: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of that reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

BILL PRESENTED

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS BILL

Mr. Secretary Carr, supported by the Prime Minister, Mr. Secretary Maudling, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. William Whitelaw, Secretary Sir Keith Joseph, Mr. Secretary Davies, Mr. Secretary Campbell, Mr. Solicitor General, and Mr. Dudley Smith, presented a Bill to amend the law relating to employers and workers and to organisations of employers and organisations of workers; to provide for the establishment of a National Industrial Relations Court and for extending the jurisdiction of industrial tribunals; to provide for the appointment of a Chief Registrar of Trade Unions and Employers' Associations, and of assistant registrars, and for establishing a Commission on Industrial Relations as a statutory body; and for purposes connected with those matters: And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 60.]

Mr. Concannon: On a point of order. I understand that the Industrial Relations Bill has been presented to the House. I believe that it will not be available in the Vote Office until after midday tomorrow. May I have your guidance, Mr. Speaker? I have always understood that once a Bill has been presented we can go to the Vote Office and obtain a copy of it.

Mr. Speaker: I am advised that the House has to order the Bill to be printed after its First Reading.

MERSEY DOCKS AND HARBOUR BOARD

Mr. Speaker: Before we begin the debate, I have an important statement to make.
I have been informed by my advisers that a writ and a notice of motion have been issued on the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board's solicitors by the Treasury Solicitor and an application made to the court that a receiver be appointed on behalf of the Crown. A hearing has been arranged for Friday morning. At the hearing, counsel instructed by the Crown will have to explain the grounds for believing that the appointment of a receiver is necessary in the circumstances. Because legal proceedings have been set in train, the sub judice rule requires that the debate which we are about to enter upon should not cover the application for a receiver, but debate on the reasons which led up to the application and the Government's proposals for altering the management of the Board will be in order. The House will remember that Mr. Speaker has a discretion in sub judice matters.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: On a point of order. Arising from your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, and accepting the sub judice rule, may I respectfully put this point to you and ask for your guidance?
You have rightly said that the House has a discretion in discussing the matters leading up to this decision. As I see it from your Ruling, the House is estopped from discussing the merits of whether a receiver should be appointed because these are matters which will be before the court. In my view, this gravely embarrasses the House. I do not wish to go into the merits, but I respectfully urge upon you, Mr. Speaker, that whether or not a receiver per se is required and whether that, by inference, is criticism of the executive body which the Minister is appointing, are matters which the House should be able to debate.
I suggest that clearly the Minister should not have taken this action until such time as the House of Commons was able to debate the merits. I respect your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, but as proceedings have been instituted the House is in a difficulty. I put it to you as the pro-

tector of the rights of the sovereignty of the House, which is the High Court of Parliament, that we have been told that we cannot debate certain matters today because the Minister has chosen to shuffle off those matters to the High Court of Justice. In my submission, this is a very grave interference with the right of Parliament to debate these matters.
No one can prevent a Minister from taking whatever action he wishes to take in the courts; that is a matter for him. But if in taking that action he prevents one of the salient features of the debate from being discussed by hon. Members, he is acting in a way totally contrary to the traditions of this House and is gravely circumscribing hon. Members' rights of discussion. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, to tell us, if not now, then perhaps on a later occasion, how we may be protected from Ministers taking peremptory action in the courts which prevents the House from exercising its right of discussion.

Mr. Speaker: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I think that he misunderstood my Ruling. I am a jealous guardian of the procedures of the House; that is one of my duties. I cannot comment on the Minister taking certain legal action. My Ruling only slightly inhibits the House from discussing the grave issues which the Adjournment debate is about.

The Minister for Transport Industries (Mr. John Peyton): Further to that point of order. May I, with great respect to you, Mr. Speaker, and to the House, point out that when I made my statement yesterday, which I did with your leave, I said that the Government had decided to take certain legal steps and that they proposed immediately to commence them. It is therefore inappropriate that the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) should charge me with shuffling off from the purview of the House matters which the House naturally wishes to discuss. I made it perfectly clear yesterday that the Government had embarked on these steps.

Mr. Thorpe: Further to the point of order. I do not wish to truncate the debate and I shall not trespass on the time of the House for more than a moment. The Minister rightly says that the Government had declared their intention of taking certain legal steps. All Governments are entitled to take such


legal steps as they think right. The Minister is as good a House of Commons man as anybody.
My submission to you, Mr. Speaker, is that before the Government take those legal steps, which are of great consequence in a matter of this importance, the House should be given the fullest possible opportunity to discuss the merits and to pass an opinion on them before it is estopped by the legal action taken from having a full debate.

Mr. Speaker: I think the House wants to proceed to the debate, but may I first deal with one point. In view of the charge which the right hon. Gentleman has made, one must be fair. I have a note to the effect that the Treasury Solicitor's application was made yesterday afternoon at 3.45. He could not then have known that I would grant a debate under Standing Order No. 9, which I did at nine minutes past four.

Mr. Michael Foot: Following the discussion in the House yesterday, would it not have been open to the Minister to take action to hold up the attempt to take legal proceedings?

Mr. Speaker: This is a matter between the two sides of the House. It is not a matter for the Chair to rule on.

3.39 p.m.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: I beg to move, That this House do now adjourn.
The whole House will agree that I am in some difficulty in the sense that the speech which I intended to make will obviously be affected to some extent by this afternoon's Ruling. However, despite this slight difficulty, I shall do my best to put my case, bearing in mind the point which you have made, Mr. Speaker.
The question of the future of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board has been concerning Merseyside Members for some time. We realised that the Board was moving into a difficult situation. On 14th July, when we discussed the Amendment to the Ports Bill, I pointed out that the measures which were being taken could only be interim measures for Merseyside.
It is recognised that the management of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board

has not been the most efficient management in the world. I want to put that on record in case any hon. Gentlemen are of the opinion that I and my colleagues are defending every action of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board management. That is not the point of this debate. There is no argument about the reorganisation of the Board; this may well be an important step forward, and I believe that the Board had to be reorganised.
I draw to the attention of the House the differing attitudes adopted on the one hand by the Government and on the other hand by the Labour Government when they were in power. The Merseyside docks, the Merseyside people and the whole future economy of Merseyside are being thrown into a state of uncertainty by the Government's action. At Birkenhead, across the river from Liverpool, when the future of the shipbuilding company Cammell Laird was at stake, when the workers were concerned about their employment and the future of the shipyard, the then Labour Government acted completely responsibly. They removed the fear from the minds of the workers, they took the matter to the I.R.C., they solved the problem and reorganised the Board in the process of doing so. The result was that those who worked at Cammell Laird in Liverpool and Birkenhead felt that they had been rescued by the action of the Labour Government.
What do the workers in Liverpool feel now? We are told that by 1972 the south end of the docks will be closed. The new chairman said only yesterday that the port will be at a lower gear, whatever that means. How many redundancies will there be? What guarantee can the Government give that those redundant workers will find employment in an area which already has far too high a level of unemployment? No wonder there is fear and uncertainty amongst dock workers in Liverpool. No wonder the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions is making it plain that it is not prepared to accept any redundancies and will fight the Government on this question.
There is a different way of dealing with this. The Government should have done what the Labour Government did for Cammell Laird. I do not think that the putting in of a receiver will inspire the


people of Merseyside with any great confidence. I will not get involved in whether it is an official receiver, an unofficial receiver or any other sort of receiver. How will the people on Merseyside feel about the putting in of a receiver to perform the Government's so-called rescue operation, when all that was required was £10 million to overcome the immediate financial crisis? I am not saying that that would have solved the problem; there needs to be better management and greater efficiency.
No doubt we shall hear a lot about the industry standing on its own two feet and the joys of private enterprise. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board is composed of members of companies in all sorts of local private enterprise businesses. It is strange that, in spite of the joy of private enterprise, these people could not run the Board efficiently. Why should a new form of private enterprise run it any more efficiently?
Our answer to this problem was to bring ports under public ownership. We said that a nationally efficient docks industry could be achieved only by bringing the industry under public ownership. But the Government are not even prepared to go half way. They say, "We reject public ownership; it will not work". [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] That is right. They are all nodding their little, stupid heads. It has not worked under private enterprise, but it will work under public ownership, so why not go half way? Why not do as the European ports do? Why not pay subsidies to our ports so that they can compete with European ports which are subsidised by central and local government?
In January, 1970, Touche Ross and Company made a report to the National Ports Council. The terms of reference were:
To determine whether the Continental ports of Dunkirk, Antwerp, Rotterdam and Hamburg have any special advantages relating to costs which would enable the level of comparable port charges to be lower in the Continental ports than in the United Kingdom ports. To distinguish natural advantages from man-made advantages. To establish the effect of applying the man-made advantages of the Continental ports to the United Kingdom ports of Liverpool, London and Southampton.
The main conclusions of the report were:

From our investigations we have reached the conclusion that the four Continental ports we studied have a major advantage over the three United Kingdom ports. They receive massive financial aid from central and local government who regard the ports as a vital part of their overall economy rather than as commercial enterprises in their own right. If the United Kingdom ports had received aid on a similar basis it would enable them to reduce port charges substantially.
In addition to financial aid, all Continental ports receive benefits from central and local government in the form of services provided free, which United Kingdom ports have to pay for. Examples are dredging in the river, and police.
I would commend that suggestion to the House and particularly to hon. Gentlemen opposite, because the ports in Continental countries with which we have to compete are sustained by their Governments on a private enterprise basis. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are so bigoted, so ridiculous in their attitude to standing on one's own feet, that they cannot see that if as a nation we are to compete we have to sustain our ports in the same way as such ports are sustained in other countries.
It is relevant to point out that in Liverpool the costs of dredging in one year amounted to £1,380,000; it cost over £500,000 to police the area. Liverpool pays enormous rates which amount to almost £500,000. These costs do not apply to the Continental ports. But hon. Gentlemen are not proposing that these ports should be sustained. Instead, they propose that the ports should merely sell off their assets.
What are those assets? One-third of the port is likely to be closed, and we already knew that there was to be a partial closure over an extended period. However, I hope that this will not happen too quickly because some of the berths at the south end of the docks are valuable and can be used for many years to come. The Harrison Line and the grain silo, which is one of the best in the country, are also in the south end of the docks and if they were closed it would be a most serious economic blow to Merseyside's future.
I am talking from experience. For many years I was the senior shop steward of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, and I know those docks like the back of my hand—much more than any hon.


Gentlemen opposite know them, including the Conservative Members from Merseyside—though not my hon. Friend from Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn), who worked with me at the Board.
The Bill that is now before the House has been forced upon us as part of the plans for reorganisation. The Conservative Party is always deeply concerned about the poor old widow who cannot manage on the pittance she receives and about the small investor. Hon. Gentlemen have a right to be concerned about the small investor, especially if in the past he has invested in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. Clause 5 of the Bill proposes that the repayment of bonds be postponed for two years. It is bad enough if people are not to get their money for two years, but the Clause then says that the value of the same bonds will be reduced by 30 per cent. Then it goes on to say—and this is the wickedest part of all—that the amount of any annuity is to be reduced by 30 per cent. The poor old widow living on her annuity will find that it is 30 per cent. lower than it has been in the past. It is a shameful situation, and when I said that the Government were abdicating their responsibilities I meant it. The Government have a responsibility to the investors, to the people of Merseyside, to the workers of Merseyside and to the country as a whole. The record of the present Government on this matter is shameful.
I believe that the answer to the problem, as we said before the General Election, is that the ports should be brought into public ownership. If we are ever to get an efficient national system, then public ownership is the answer. In the meantime, I wish to urge two courses on the Government. First, that they should reconsider their action and, even at this late hour, should be prepared to ensure that the money for the bridging action is forthcoming. I would accept the rest of it as a temporary measure, but something else is required as well. People need to know what has really happened. Therefore, we require a searching public inquiry into the whole situation. The Liverpool Labour Party, the Liverpool trade unions and many other organisations on Merseyside have been asking for such an inquiry for some time. This is a sound and sensible proposition. I hope

the Government, even at this twelfth hour, will be prepared to look again at the whole issue and to put themselves in a proper position with the people of Merseyside by carrying out the suggestions that I have put forward this afternoon.

3.55 p.m.

The Minister for Transport Industries (Mr. John Peyton): The hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) reminded the House that at one time he was the senior shop steward in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. I endeavoured to say yesterday, in what I hope was not regarded either as patronising or controversial way, that I thought very few people in this House could do as much as the hon. Gentleman, or could make as an important a contribution as he can to the future of the Port of Liverpool.
I hope I can say, without being unfair or unduly raising the temperature, that the hon. Gentleman's contribution this afternoon was well below the level he can achieve. He pleaded first of all that he was in some slight difficulty in making his case today. I shall refer to that matter if only because the point was made by the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) that the Government took the legal step yesterday. If they had not done so others might well have acted, but I can assure the House this action was not intended to be in any way discourteous to the House.

Mr. Michael Foot: Could the right hon. Gentleman say why this action was taken at 3.45? Could he not have waited until he had heard the views of the House as to whether there was to be a debate? When the right hon. Gentleman left the House, could he not have given an immediate instruction that the matter should be held up until the debate had taken place?

Mr. Peyton: In the view of the Government it was important that that action should be taken promptly. It was taken promptly and was not in any way intended to be discourteous to the House.
The hon. Member for Walton has said that the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board did not have the most efficient management in the world. It is essential that the House should be fair to people who have taken part in the management of the Board, a board which


has come in for a great deal of public criticism. I am bound to say that if I were attempting to set up an organisation to run anything I would not have chosen the pattern of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. But that is in no way to blame the men who took part in it. To have six representatives of ship-owners, six representatives of port users, aided by four nominees of the Minister, all part-time, is hardly a very great recipe for success. I must remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that this was an organisation which survived during their period in office.
The hon. Gentleman was good enough to say, and I am grateful to him for this, that he offered no argument on the merits of the reorganisation which is now being carried out, even though only on a temporary basis. I should like to take this opportunity of saying how grateful I am to the men, whose names I gave to the House yesterday, for taking on a task of very considerable dimensions. I very much hope that I can take both sides of the House with me in wishing them well in successfully tackling a task which would daunt many.
The hon. Gentleman has made the gravamen of his charge that the Government's action yesterday was such as to throw the whole of Merseyside into uncertainty. A few of us on this side of the House feel, and I must make this clear, that whenever warnings have been given in the past, whenever it has been said that we were sailing into difficult and dangerous waters, the Government of the day have in the event yielded to the temptation to reach for the anaesthetic bottle, and the easy specific which persuades people that there is a painless way out of our troubles. I do not believe that this is true.
Only the other day I was in one of our ports and talking to the trade union members concerned with its running. One of the dangers with which they were concerned was that of the excess capacity of ports which they thought might arise in the future. They asked me: "What are you going to do about it?" I said that the difficulty always is to find a body, whether it is the National Ports Council, the Government or whoever else it may be, having the courage to take decisive action; courage which is acceptable

everywhere in the country except where the action is taken.
That being so, when the hon. Gentleman says we have plunged Merseyside into anxiety I do not feel that anxiety in these circumstances is wholly improper or to be deplored. Indeed, there are abundant grounds for anxiety—I must make that clear—otherwise there would have been no basis for the action which the Government took yesterday.

Mr. James A. Dunn: While I accept that anxiety may be attributed to what the right hon. Gentleman has just described to the House, would he not agree that the fact that this state of things emerged only in June of this year, with the members of the Board apparently previously completely unaware of it, and the Minister told only in July, should cause grave anxiety and concern?

Mr. Peyton: I profoundly agree with the hon. Member. The fact that a Government which he supported were in power until the middle of June, and apparently either knew nothing of this situation or were content to leave things so that they could be pushed under the carpet with the overall solution, if it can be so called, of nationalisation and that the hon. Gentleman should wish to draw attention to it, I find strange.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that far from doing nothing, despite opposition from himself and his hon. and right hon. Friends, we were bringing in a solution to deal with the very problem of which he has so eloquently spoken as it affects not only the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board but a number of other statutory bodies? Is he not also aware that under the Conservative legislation which we were amending and reorganising the Minister of Transport was not allowed access to the confidential financial information which, under that Act, those statutory trust bodies gave to the National Ports Council?

Mr. Peyton: The right hon. Gentleman would probably accept without much difficulty that there has been a certain irreconcilable difference of opinion between the two sides of the House on the merits of the Ports Bill; and that we did not, and do not, for one moment regard what he describes as the "solution" of nationalisation as deserving that title.
The hon. Member for Walton drew attention to the fact that the Labour Government had come to the rescue, as he put it, of Cammell Laird, and reassured those concerned. What did that operation achieve? I believe, and I am certain that the country will have to face it, that there is in Liverpool a situation which requires a new united effort. It is no good calling for specifics from one Government or another.
I believe, and I said this yesterday to the hon. Gentleman, that he himself and a great many others can make a contribution of a far more significant kind than merely rattling the begging bowl on behalf of a great port like Liverpool. I believe that the Port of Liverpool is assured of a great future and an immense place in our commerce so long as a new effort is made, and a new understanding is reached, and a determination shown to win for Liverpool among the traders of the world the reputation of a port which gives a quick turn round and a first class service. That is the best contribution anyone can make to ensuring the future of a port.
The hon. Gentleman put in a plea for public ownership and in doing so made one of his rather noiser asides, which I shall disregard, in which he described my hon. and right hon. Friends. I do not believe that in this particular instance public ownership would have made any contribution whatever to the general stability and efficiency of the port. He compared, and this is a very relevant matter, what he considered to be the greater opportunities enjoyed by ports on the Continent vis-à-vis the Port of Liverpool and our ports in general. I admit that this is an exercise which should be regularly carried out and that time could well be spent examining the differences in treatment. No Government could afford to underrate the importance of our ports to the economy.
At the same time, I find very hard to accept his total failure ever even to refer to such operations as the Seaforth Dock. That dock represents an investment of nearly £40 million of Government money. I believe that both sides of the House concede that it represents the future of the Port of Liverpool. It seems odd, in those circumstances, that an hon. Member moving a highly critical emergency Motion of this kind should forbear even

to mention the very significant contribution which the Government are making.
Perhaps I should also mention the fact that the Government have agreed—

Mr. Heffer: Is the Minister aware that I personally first raised the desirability of an extended Seaforth Dock about 12 years ago in the Liverpool City Council? It is something which the Liverpool people have wanted for a long time. Is he further aware that the money was first forthcoming from a Labour Government? The present Government are rather silly, but I did not think that they would be sufficiently stupid to stop all assistance for what will obviously be a first-class dock.

Mr. Peyton: What an argument that is. The point is that the money comes from the British taxpayer. Some £16 million or £18 million has already been spent on the Seaforth Dock, leaving another £22 million to £24 million to come, which has to be raised by the Government of the day. The Government are prepared to do that. But whatever the hon. Gentleman may have said in the past about Seaforth, it would have been relevant to an understanding of the whole scene today for him at least to have referred to the existence of a project so important and significant to the port.
The hon. Gentleman made his final denunciation of my right hon. and hon. Friends by saying that we were bigoted and dogmatic, and levelled the accusation that we were becoming addicted to this mania or habit of people standing on their own two feet. If that is the gravamen of the Socialist Party's charge against the Government, I am sure that most of us on this side will be very happy to accept it. It seems to us of urgent importance that this country and its immensely significant operations—in which I include the port of Liverpool, of course—should get back to the habit of economic independence and not always be looking for help, because there will be fewer and fewer in a position to give it.
As this is the first opportunity I have had to address the House on this subject at any length, perhaps I may say a few words about the recent background. One of the difficulties in handling the management of the port is that it is a statutory trust and, as such, cannot be wound up


without an Act of Parliament. Therefore, any radical restructuring of management depends either upon Act of Parliament or upon the close co-operation and help of the board, as was made available to me yesterday and in the past few weeks. Without the consent of the board no one could have achieved even the temporary rearrangement of management which has been arranged.
I believe that one of the troubles here is that Liverpool is almost haunted by the spectre of its past successes. There is a great deal too much of the clutter of the past, and not only is this physical but it endures in human attitudes as well.
The Chairman of the Board, Mr. Taylor—I wish to say how sorry I am that he became ill during the last few months—came to see me at the end of July, accompanied by the Director-General, and informed me that the Board was in serious financial trouble. I suggested that he should appoint accountants to carry out an immediate investigation and report to the Board as soon as possible on the extent and definition of the trouble.
The accountants whom the Board appointed produced a fairly sharp initial reaction in September, and finally made recommendations to the Board in October, which, I think, the Board was commendably quick to adopt. At any rate, suffice it to say that economies and increases in charges were determined upon, and policies involving getting rid of surplus assets were adopted, with the result that the Borad's own forecasts of substantial losses mounting to the year 1974–75 were very considerably turned round. I think that one can say that, on the basis of those figures, there is at least the prospect of a material improvement in the port of Liverpool.
The House will be aware that on Friday last the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board deposited a Bill which involves deferment of capital repayments and a reduction of the nominal value of capital by 30 per cent. The Bill makes provision also for a new constitution for the Board. I believe that it offers a major step forward for the port.

Mr. Joel Barnett: Does not the right hon. Gentleman accept that the provisions of the

Bill have serious implications for many thousands of people in Lancashire, small investors in particular, who treated an investment in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board in the same way as they treated an investment in, for example, local government stock? This is a most serious matter which I should have expected the right hon. Gentleman and other right hon. and hon. Members opposite to treat with the seriousness it deserves. Even at this stage, will the right hon. Gentleman ask the Board—after all, it is his reorganisation scheme—to reconsider the whole question of the writing off of 30 per cent. of small investor's money?

Mr. Peyton: It is not my scheme of reconstruction; it is the Board's scheme. Unfortunately, in a hard world—the hon. Gentleman is well aware of this—investors who make mistakes are apt to lose their money. The hon. Gentleman is putting forward a doctrine where-under, apparently, all investors, particularly small investors, should be protected—

Mr. Barnett: Rubbish. The right hon. Gentleman must not distort what I said.

Mr. Peyton: I am much obliged for that denial.

Mr. Barnett: I said no such thing.

Mr. Peyton: Then I willingly accept that.

Mr. Barnett: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman is not aware that there are many thousands of investors in Lancashire who have treated investments in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board precisely as they would treat investments in any local authority in Lancashire or in the country at large. This has serious implications for investment generally. If the right hon. Gentleman does not understand that, he cannot understand the whole purport of what I am saying.

Mr. Peyton: I fully understand the seriousness of this matter. The cause of it is in itself very serious. The hon. Gentleman seems to wave that on one side and to reach for some painless answer. I do not believe that we can go on searching for painless answers in this country and expect to get away with it.

Mr. Mulley: The right hon. Gentleman appeared to indicate that the Government as such had no knowledge of, or, at least, had no responsibility for, the Private Bill which has been presented. But no body can bring forward a Bill of this character, particularly one giving substantial and onerous duties to a Secretary of State, without the Government's blessing.

Mr. Peyton: The Bill will be discussed in due course. The duties of the Secretary of State were a matter on which the Board could, should, and did consult me. But apart from that the Bill remains the Board's proposals, and I must leave it there.
I revert for a moment to the point made by the hon. Member for Heywood and Royton (Mr. Barnett). I do not want him to be in any doubt about what is in my mind. I fully realise the seriousness of this matter for bond holders, and particularly when they happen to be people of small possessions. I absolutely accept that. But what I say—I think that the country can well learn from this—is that, if a major operation such as the port of Liverpool drifts into these difficulties, there will inevitably be quite widespread casualties.
Perhaps it will help the House if I wind up my remarks today by detailing the four courses which, roughly speaking, presented themselves to the Government. First, there was the possibility, canvassed quite widely, that the Government should take no action but merely allow events to take their course, in which case, I believe, the only conclusion which could follow would have been the total closure of the port. To my mind, with the port of Liverpool handling nearly a quarter of our general cargo exports, and taking in 12½ per cent. of our crude oil imports, quite apart from the enormous number of people who have their livelihoods in the port, that was unthinkable.
The second course, equally unacceptable, was that the Government should stand behind the port in all its obligations and bail it out to the extent of about £20 million. Had that happened, we should have taught a bad lesson not only to the ports of this country but to every commercial operation which ever looked like running into difficulty.

Mr. Heffer: Rolls-Royce?

Mr. Peyton: Again, we have the comparison with Rolls-Royce. I cannot bring the hon. Gentleman to remind himself at appropriate moments of the enormous contribution which the Government are making at Seaforth in the port of Liverpool.
A third choice was the bridging operation dealing with a smaller sum of money. I should point out that not only did this have disadvantages of a slightly smaller order than the alternative of a total bailing out, but it also involved considerable unfairness to some of the bond holders as against others. The final alternative was the appointment of a receiver upon which the Government decided.
Without in any way infringing upon the ruling which has been given, I think I am in order in reminding the House that the appointment of a receiver is a very limited operation. It does not involve the Official Receiver, it does not entail liquidation, nor does it involve any management powers over the port or any power of recourse to the assets of the port. I believe that the future of this immensely important port depends upon the contributions which can be made, and should be made, by a lot of people of differing backgrounds, differing functions and certainly differing political beliefs.
The hon. Member for Walton who knows an enormous amount about this port, could, despite his speech today, make a valuable and positive contribution. I would almost dare to hope if I were a better orator that I might be able to persuade him on this occasion not to vote, not because he is totally satisfield with anything that I have said, but because in his heart he must realise that new attitudes are required from all involved in this port and that a significant and signal gesture such as is in his power to make this evening would be a contribution of great and untold value.
If there is any step that I can take, of almost any nature, to improve understanding, to win co-operation and to dispel the suspicion and mistrust which is sedulously sown by the mischievous, whom I know to be the enemy of all people of goodwill on all sides who have at heart the interests of this port, I would most gladly take it. If I may respectfully say so to the House, I think at the


moment that the Opposition is in some danger of over-reacting to what is a sensible proposal which contains hope for the port.

4.22 p.m.

Mr. Edmund Dell: What we worry about on this side of the House is not the Minister's oratory, it is his argument. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board was set up in an Act of 1857, entitled:
An Act for consolidating the Docks at Liverpool and Birkenhead into One Estate, and for vesting the Control and Management of them in One Public Trust; and for other Purposes.
I emphasise "Birkenhead". The River Mersey, like most rivers, has two sides.
The question of pensions was raised with the right hon. Gentleman earlier. I took his answers in the House yesterday to be a categorical guarantee that pensions would be paid and that there would be no default. That I welcome. I wish he had said so before. If he had, there would have been a great deal less anxiety on that score. That is what I understand from his answers and I take it I am right.
What the House is discussing is the Government's policy of disengagement. The Times Business News in an editorial this morning said that if the Government were to disengage they might as well start with the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board as anywhere else. I doubt whether that was the Minister's original view. I do not think he originally thought that this was an appropriate point at which to start. This case is supposed to be different from Rolls-Royce and the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned the Seaforth Docks. We need not go into amounts. The fact is that the Government have recently put a good deal more into Rolls-Royce than they are willing to do in this case and I do not think it will be understood in Merseyside that this case is considered by the Government to be of less national significance than that of Rolls-Royce.
Even granted the Government's philosophy of disengagement, let us consider this case. First we are not dealing with a single firm. The right hon. Gentleman referred to commercial firms that fell upon bad times as a result of bad

management. This is not a case of an individual firm, this is the Port of Liverpool, upon the success of which and the development of which the whole of the economy of Merseyside and the northwest to a considerable extent, depends. What the Government are proving is that they are prepared to take actions which will make the whole problem of solving the situation of the Merseyside development area very much more difficult.
We are dealing with an immediate crisis which is the result of inadequate management. There is nothing in the situation which better management supported through adequate resources by the Government could not rectify. The right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) referred to the case of Cammell Laird. The justification for what the Labour Government did with Cammell Laird was the prospect of success for that firm and there is every sign that it will be successful. Evidently hon. Gentlemen opposite would have allowed it to go to the wall because of some theory of disengagement. This was an immediate crisis which could have been solved with proper Government help and solved in a way which would sustain development at the rate at which it should take place in the Port of Liverpool.
The third thing about this case is that the Government bear a responsibility. Governments have appointed people to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and have received accounts from the Board. This Government cannot throw this off as something for which they have no responsibility. The Labour Government wanted to nationalise this pert and to deal with the long-term problems of the ports of the country by nationalisation. The new Government decided that they will not take this course. For the Port of Liverpool this has been a sudden change of policy and I suggest to the Government, as a matter of public faith, that they should have given the port time to absorb the implications of this change of policy by assisting in this immediate crisis. Governments have such duties to companies.
If I may say so, from my present position, one thing that worried me about the attitude of the previous Government to Cammell Laird was that there was a


change of policy and there was not sufficient assistance to enable it to get out of the problems brought about by that change of policy. In the end the then Government took the necessary action and there is every sign now that that action will have successful results.
One characteristic of this situation that the Government think that here there is a way to discipline the workers in the Port of Liverpool. The right hon. Gentleman as good as said so this afternoon—that this was a way of making those employed in the port responsible and susceptible to industrial discipline.

Mr. Peyton: I did not say that. There is no question of the Government wanting to wave a big stick over everyone and discipline them. It is merely the fervant hope of the Government that, at long last, after a dangerously long interval, the country will begin to look at the facts and meet them.

Mr. Dell: The right hon. Gentleman has again as good as said what I attributed to him in my original remarks. It has been clearly indicated by many spokesmen that this is part of the thinking behind the Government's action. The Government could not have thought of a worse way of going about it. People in the Port of Liverpool are told that they are responsible for the situation but they know they are in no way responsible for it. They are not responsible for the failure of a particular management to add up its cash flow and make a forecast as to it. They find themselves blamed for everything. Their reaction to this will be that whatever they do, whatever co-operation they offer to the management of this Port, they will be blamed if anything goes wrong whosever's responsibility it is. The Government are creating precisely the wrong atmosphere by their action. Better industrial relations will not be found in an atmosphere of crises and redundancy.
This is not an appropriate case for disengagement. That has been shown by the Government's own action in this case, which the right hon. Gentleman has described. The principal argument for saying that it is not an appropriate case for disengagement is that the Government are not disengaging. The Government have taken action which puts them in direct control of the Port of Liverpool. They

have appointed a new management. The right hon. Gentleman, in answer to a supplementary question yesterday, told me that he was not interested in the minutæ. I did not think for a moment that he was. But the power he has taken to instruct the Board to appoint a new management makes him responsible.
The Bill placed before the House by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board enables the Secretary of State to appoint new management. This is a permanent power. The right hon. Gentleman cannot throw off responsibility and say that he is disengaging when what he is doing is to take the power to appoint the management of the Board. What the Government are doing is appointing new management but refusing new money. They have taken responsibility. They appoint the management and sponsor the Bill but refuse the money—the cheapest take-over bid in history.
Where is the money to develop the Port coming from? The right hon. Gentleman has referred to what the Government are doing for Seaforth. But is that all they are going to do? In the past the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board has obtained money from the public. Do the Government think that the Board will obtain money from the public in the future, after the Bill? It will be a long time before the public will invest money in the Board after the Bill, except on very high risk terms. Is it the intention of the Government that the dues earned by the Board shall cover the total capital expenditure of the Board? If not, where will the Board obtain the money to develop the port at the rate at which it should develop to provide the export and import necessities of that area? The Government must answer that question. Will the Government provide money? If not, then the development of the port will be affected. If they provide money the port falls even more into the control of the Government.
One of the most pathetic elements in the situation was the decision of the Board to oppose the nationalisation of the docks. The Board argued that it was in favour of local autonomy. Now it is in the position of not having local autonomy and not having nationalisation either. Perhaps it is rethinking its position and would now prefer nationalisation.

Mr. John Tilney: The right hon. Gentleman has not dealt with the possibility of raising the money municipally, in the same way as the Manchester Ship Canal was financed by the Corporation of Manchester and the Port of Bristol by the Corporation of Bristol.

Mr. Dell: The hon. Gentleman should know that the Manchester City Corporation was able to raise money for the Ship Canal only by means of an Act of Parliament. Local authorities do not have the power to provide money in that way. It would require an Act of Parliament. Let the Government do that if they think it right. I suggest that the body which should provide money in this case is the Government and not the local authority.
The most extraordinary part of the affair is the policy of confiscation by legislation, and confiscation without compensation or consultation. The right hon. Gentleman said that this was the Board's Bill and not his. Does he imagine that any Board could bring such a Bill before the House with any hope of its being passed without Government sponsorship? This is not the Board's, but the right hon. Gentleman's Bill. There has been nothing like it by way of confiscation of private savings by a Government since the action of Mr. Neville Chamberlain in 1932 when he did something not dissimilar—not actually as bad—in the case of War Loan. I can imagine the outcry if a Labour Government had done this. It might be thought that we were slouches not to think of it. But a Conservative Government can think of this way of financing ports or other industrial enterprises. The right hon. Gentleman should be careful. He might teach us too much.
This is a trustee security, advertised as such. There are 35,000 investors of all kinds who have invested in the Board.

Mr. Tilney: rose—

Mr. Dell: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will catch the eye of Mr. Deputy Speaker.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris): Does the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) wish to raise a point of order?

Mr. Tilney: Only on a point of accuracy. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board are not trustees.

Mr. Dell: On Merseyside this investment was regarded in the same terms as investment in local authorities. Indeed, many small investors on Merseyside regard it as better than local authorities, which are involved in politics. People used to say of this investment, "At any rate, there is no politics in it". People have put life savings into it and expected the Board to meet the terms. It has always been understood that the Board will meet the terms. Now we have the Government confiscating by legislation. Have the Government considered the effect on the credit not just of the Board but of other ports in this country? Have they thought of the effect on the credit of local authorities?
This Government believes in saving. Could they think of any greater blow to saving than what they have done? They are writing down the nominal value by 30 per cent. and postponing repayment by two years. At present rates of inflation that means that they have virtually halved the value of the investments put up by private persons often with very little money to invest in the Board and trusting the honesty of Governments. We have a Government who believe in saving but are not even prepared to stand up for the public faith which people have always vested in Governments of this country.
The Chairman of the Northern Stock Exchange is reported as saying that this was regarded as a safe investment by people who could not afford a gamble. The Chairman of Liverpool Stock Exchange described this as a terrible thing. That is precisely what it is. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that this Government will not be forgotten on Merseyside.

4.38 p.m.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: When I and other of my hon. Friends did not rise yesterday to support the demand for this debate there was a certain amount of jeering from the other side. I think it is a great pity to have had this debate before proper consideration of the Government's proposals and before an opportunity to have consultations with the people concerned on Merseyside,


because such a debate was bound to result in the kind of political overtones which we have heard both from the mover of the Motion and from the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell). I have tried hard—

Mr. Dunn: The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that by the very procedure of the House it was necessary that this debate should arise in such a way. There was no other way.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Indeed there was. There are plenty of Supply Days and it would have been easy and much better to have had a debate next week. I have tried hard during the past few weeks, and indeed longer, to find a satisfactory solution. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for the patience he has shown and the way he has listened to all my points, even though I do not agree in toto with the results.
I deprecate all this talk about the past, the merits or otherwise of public ownership, and also this talk about a lame duck. I think that the Board was a lamed duck. It was lamed by the threat of nationalisation and the way in which the previous Government interfered with its borrowing policies. It wanted to borrow £15 million for 10 years, and the present crisis would not have arisen if it had been allowed to do it. It was given permission, instead, to borrow only £6 million for two years. It has suffered from Government interference and to that extent became a lamed duck. Ideologically, it cannot be wrong to give a crutch to a lamed duck for a time if it will enable it to walk again, and I believe that it could have walked again.
With regard to the past, the port has long been regarded as an institution: the view has been that once a man had a job there he would be there for life. There were mistakes in management. The direct labour scheme introduced after the war was very expensive and, on the whole, did not redound to the benefit of the Board or its ability to deal with the affairs of the port.
I want briefly to make four points. The first concerns the future of the port. I do not think that it is possible to conceive of the Port of Liverpool, including Birkenhead, not continuing to exist. I am told that at the moment only 5 per cent.

of its cargoes could be handled by other United Kingdom ports and, even if there were large recruitment programmes in other ports, they could handle only 15 per cent. of Liverpool's cargoes. The port must go on, and I welcome my right hon. Friend's indication of his support for the Seaforth scheme. There is to be a further £24 million of public money put into it. But will the 20 per cent. modernisation grants under section 12 of the 1964 Act be continued? They are very important to the viability of the Seaforth scheme, as they are with regard to developments in other parts of the docks on Merseyside. Do the Government intend to continue those modernisation grants?
Then, with regard to the pensioners, I understand the technical difficulties of giving a legal guarantee. However, it appears that the pensioners have nothing to fear, and I am glad to know that that is the position.
My third point concerns the particular steps to be taken to make the port viable. They will involve the closing down of certain unprofitable operations, the sale of disposable assets, the improvement of efficiency and a new structure of management. I welcome the new structure of management which has been put forward, but it will entail a great deal of realism on the part of many people on Merseyside and a re-examination of their attitudes. I hope that there will be more co-operation and possibly joint operations between some private concerns and the new management with a view to improving efficiency and profitability in the port.
My final point, which is perhaps the most difficult for me to deal with, is this question of a bridging operation. It comes down to a bridging operation between a large deficit and a surplus. We are discussing the chances of getting the present deficit of about £4 million into surplus. I have seen suggestions of a surplus of between £1 million and £2 million. However, that cannot be done overnight, and some form of bridging operation will be necessary.
The Government have put forward their idea of a bridging operation, but I regret to see that it will involve sacrifices for the 36,000 bond holders. I agree that it was never a trustee stock, but they are bonds in which people have had


confidence. It is also a pity that the nature of the Government's plan should affect the credit-worthiness of port authorities generally. If matters remain as they are, I doubt whether port authorities will be able to raise money in the future without some kind of Government guarantee. That ties round the necks of future Governments the responsibility for raising capital for port developments, and perhaps that was not the intention of this exercise.
This is not the end of the story. We have heard about the legal processes and the possibility of a Private Act. But there will be other developments. This debate will not help very much but, as the situation develops, I hope that my right hon. Friend will bear in mind the points which have been raised from this side of the House.
There are many difficulties, but there will be a great deal of good will for the new management. I am glad that the Director-General is to continue. He has been a splendid servant of the Dock Board under very difficult conditions, and he has discharged his duties manfully. We wish the new management well.

4.45 p.m.

Mr. James A. Dunn: Perhaps I might follow the line adopted by the right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) in that I would like to see co-operation and good will in the port, quite apart from any other move which may help resolve the present crisis.
Before any solution is possible, those who will be called upon to co-operate must know all the facts. At present, those facts are not readily available to either side of this House, with the exception of the Minister. Judging from some of the recommendations which have been put to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board and announced to the House yesterday by the right hon. Gentleman, it is clear that the report of the independent consultants directed that certain actions should be taken. However, that report is available only to members of the board and the Minister.
Clearly the report contains some important facts. I was not interrupting the Minister on a party point when I asked him whether he was aware of the

anxiety about the method of disclosure of the board's financial crisis. He may be unaware of it, but the first suggestion that there might be a crisis appeared in the local Press at the beginning of June, though the extent of it was still very uncertain. Following that, there came more positive information when it was announced that the Minister would be consulted about some of the problems. A decision was taken on 18th June. However, between the beginning of June and that decision, there were 18 days.
The previous Government were unaware of the exact cause or, indeed, of the crisis itself, and the incoming Minister was unaware of it until the end of July. Even then, you were not certain. You received a deputation from Merseyside, and points of view were put to you. You very kindly indicated your concern and full co-operation with everyone involved. Since that meeting and the receipt of the report of the independent consultants, much has been revealed to you that was unknown to you previously—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I am a little mystified at the moment as to whom the "you" refers.

Mr. Dunn: I must apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am addressing my remarks, through you, to the Minister for Transport Industries.
One of the great problems that we will face in the coming days it that unless we are given the fullest information by way of a public inquiry or at least the publication of the report of the independent consultants so that the issues involved can be got over to the Merseyside community and everyone else who will be asked to co-operate in any rescue operation, there is no possibility of co-operation. The right hon. and learned Member for Wirral pointed out that it is estimated that the revenue accounts of the Board will be in surplus within two or three years. However, it would be a poor industry which could not get a surplus, having increased its rates and harbour charges by 45 per cent. in the last six months.
The people who will be asked to pay these charges are now accepting that this is absolutely necessary. But we must look back some time, because in the last four or five-year period the Board itself


refused to increase rates by 5 per cent. Had these decisions been taken at the appropriate time the grave financial crisis now upon the Board would not have arisen. That is the real cause, not the fact that the Bank of England recommended and the previous Government accepted that it should not be allowed to float a £15 million loan. The Board's users and customers dominated the economic decisions as to the price which they would pay. It was similar to a shopkeeper asking his best customer to come to his shop and decide what price he would like to pay for the article which the shopkeeper wished to sell him. These were the great difficulties.
Other suggestions have been made by hon. Members representing Merseyside constituencies. I should like to deal with one or two of those suggestions in the short time I wish to occupy the House with my contribution. It was suggested that if the dock workers were to forgo a portion of their wages or, indeed, were not to press so vigorously for some of the negotiations on their behalf to be successful, the port would find itself in better financial circumstances. This is a grave misunderstanding and perhaps I can correct it.
The wages paid to dock workers in Liverpool have no influence or effect upon the revenues of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. Indeed, those who suggest otherwise are doing themselves a disservice and making it more difficult to get co-operation at the level at which they suggest co-operation should be sought.
Another suggestion was that the local authorities might make a contribution towards resolving this crisis. Everyone on Merseyside, particularly with experience of local authorities, is fully aware, as was said by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell), that the local authorities do not possess the power nor at present the absolute will. Whatever might have been said about this situation, the Board itself was responsible for it happening. It was unaware of the deficit until June, and even then it was unaware of its extent. This does not inspire the confidence of local authorities. In the way that the Government have thought about this matter, no doubt those local authorities of a somewhat similar political character which

subscribe to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board would also have some regard, although not all. The City of Liverpool has taken a somewhat different view.
There is no way of giving the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board absolution for this situation. The Board created it, perpetuated it, and enjoyed it. I join right hon. and hon. Gentlemen when they praise those who are the administrators of the decisions taken by the Board. It is well known that they have often advised and that their advice has been refused or neglected.
The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board has appointed a sub-committee to represent different interests and it will have executive powers. What are the terms of reference of this executive committee? To whom will it be responsible? Will the Board itself disappear? Will the Minister accept responsibility for the decisions of this executive committee?
Without going too far into the question, which is now a legal issue, will those who receive the rates on behalf of this executive committee be able to curtail the moneys which would become available for any extension or other services which the Board wishes to undertake, particularly in relation to its day-to-day operations, of which dredging is important? I finish on this point. If the river is not dredged the first investment for Cammell Laird goes for a burton, to use a colloquialism from my side of the river. If that happens, there will be a catastrophe.
Other comments could be made. I resist the temptation, because I am watching the clock.

4.55 p.m.

Mr. Ernest Marples: The whole House will agree that the speech made by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) has been reasonable in tone and has contributed to lowering the temperature of the debate. For that I am grateful. The hon. Gentleman contributed a number of points with which I agree, but one or two with which I do not.
I agree that it is a pity that the debate is taking place today. I know that the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) had no option—at least, he had an option, but he took it rather quickly. I am sure that we cannot have a sensible, intelligent and coherent debate on the


basis of the facts before the House today. We have not seen the accountants' last reports. We have not had a complete breakdown of what will happen.
I have searched in many ways for information and I have had great difficulty. I will explain some of those difficulties. It is difficult, even for an ex-Minister of Transport going to his old friends, to get sufficient information. Therefore, it must be worse for others. It is this lack of information and the taking of the debate today about which I am sorry for both sides of the House.

Mr. Mulley: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman's point about lack of information. But is the right hon. Gentleman seriously suggesting that we should have had more information available if we had not had the debate today? I am hoping that many of the questions raised will be answered during the debate.

Mr. Marples: I am suggesting that sufficient was not available to us before debating the matter today. Debates tend to be meaningless unless hon. Members study correct information before the debate. Without information we get wild rhetorical speeches which add to the heat but not to the light.
I want to talk about three particular points. First, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board (Capital Reconstruction) Bill. This is a local authority Bill, but it must have been known by the Ministry. It is odd to ask Parliament to legislate for the reduction of bonds. I am worried about this, because my constituency is on the Cheshire side of the Mersey so we have bond holders. But, at the same time, I do not think that in principle this is the right thing to do. My first impression is that it is not. The suggestion is that it be postponed for two years and then reduce it by 30 per cent. If we get inflation, then the poor chap who has those bonds will be in a mess. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider this point very seriously before we have a debate on the Bill. I should like my right hon. Friend and the Opposition to consider whether, when we get the information, we might have a fuller debate in a calm atmosphere.
I was going to ask what the receiver of the rates would do, but I am told that that would be out of order—[Interruption.]

I can try. I know that the Receiver's function is not to wind up the company. He is not an Official Receiver in the ordinary way. He cannot get at the assets, but he can get at the money. In other words, he runs the cash flow. If he runs the cash flow, how does he dish out the money? What are his priorities? It is said that it is to protect the interests of the Government, to protect the interests of the secured creditors, and to give the expenses necessary for the continued operation of the port. What is the order of priority? Surely the first priority must be to continue the port.
Then what about the pensioners and bond holders? Where do they come in? And what about management, because what they can do depends entirely upon what this banker does with the money which he receives. Any debate about management is virtually meaningless unless we know what is to happen to the allocation of the cash after it is received.
I now turn to one point which I hope will not raise the temperature of the House. I have not done this recently anyway—largely because I have not spoken much. The dockers in Liverpool are due to strike on 8th December. They may not. I hope that they will not. But if they do, the cost to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board will be about £30,000. That is the estimate. Of course, this figure may be wrong, because there are so many of these figures being quoted.

Mr. Dunn: The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that if on one day there is a loss of £30,000 the next day there is a similar gain. I believe that the dockers will support the directions given by the T.U.C. If they do not, they will have to bear the consequences, but I believe that this situation has been brought about by the Government's intervention in another matter.

Mr. Marples: I must keep the temperature down, otherwise I shall be accused of all sorts of things. If there is a strike on 8th December, if the receiver gets the money he will have to pay another £30,000 to the board for the running of the Board, and get no revenue. If he pays that sum for that purpose it means that he has £30,000 less for pensioners or bondholders, if that is his order of priorities. We do not know what the receiver is doing, and no explanation has


been given of what he will do with the cash. It is worse than being married. I never know what happens to the money that I give my wife, and I dare not ask her, but in this instance we can ask what is to happen to the money. I hope that some light can be thrown on to what will be done by this financial man who holds the purse strings, what priorities he has been given, and how they will affect the many and poor pensioners and bond holders.
I now come to another matter, and that is the question of comparable costs at different ports. I shall not follow the hon. Member for Walton, because he brought in foreign ports, which he said were treated differently. I have up-dated the files that I had when I was Minister of Transport in an effort to compare the costs of Liverpool with those of two other United Kingdom ports—London and Glasgow. This is a difficult operation and I do not say that I am right or accurate, but I have made a shot at it. There are two types of port charges. There are those related to the tonnage of shipping, and then there are the various charges for services provided at the port, such as cranage, tallying, and the various labour charges. The latter varies considerably, but the former does not.
An exercise has been carried out based on actual experience of which I have knowledge. On the cost to ships for dock facilities, at the top of the league is Liverpool, with 121. If we take London as the norm of 100, Liverpool's costs are 121, which is 21 per cent. above the London figure. The figure for Glasgow is 68. I have the figures for two continental ports, but I do not think that they are relevant because that would not be comparing like with like, and in this respect I agree with the hon. Member for Walton.
According to the Liverpool Post on Saturday, part of the management's proposals is to raise charges by another 20 per cent., having just got 25 per cent. That will make Liverpool's charges to ships 41 per cent. higher than London. Of course if we are to discuss management in a meaningful way, we must have accurate figures. I am not claiming that my figures are accurate, but they are the best that I have been able to get hold of in these difficult circumstances.
If charges are raised by that amount, the management will chase away the ships, and by that I mean not only British ships, and smaller ships, but foreign ones, too. I think that one Polish company has already left Liverpool recently for that reason. I am anxious about the situation, and I should like my right hon. Friend to give us the comparisons because these are what shipowners of all countries will look at. Liverpool must measure up to a competitive standard if it is to survive.
I support my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd), my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries, and the hon. Member for Kirkdale in making an appeal to the hon. Member for Walton for co-operation between both parties. It is my feeling that in this House we are still fighting the June Election, and it is about time that we stopped doing it. The contribution that we have had from the hon. Member for Kirkdale will go a long way towards producing calm co-operation. I make my plea because the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board is in a mess, and it will not get get out of that mess unless all of us on Merseyside get together and stop bickering and, instead, try to help.
I speak from bitter experience. I know Merseyside very well, indeed, having fought eight elections there. I know the people. They are difficult in some ways, but they are very good if they can get together. One has only to think of Everton playing Liverpool at football to realise how difficult the people there can be, and sometimes how awkward, but once they get together they form a good team.
As Minister of Transport I had very little trouble during my five years in office with any local authorities about agreeing to a tunnel or bridge. Any problems were solved reasonably easily. The only trouble that I had was on Merseyside, and there I had more trouble than I had with all the rest put together. I thought that as a Member of Merseyside they would treat me nicely, kindly and gently, but I found that it was worse being a Member, and I got pretty rough treatment, indeed. However, I soldiered on, and eventually things worked out, and all Merseyside authorities agreed to a scheme.
The main quarrel was between two Labour Parties in power, one in Liverpool, and one in Birkenhead. The one in Birkenhead wanted to design the road in such a way that it suited Birkenhead. The one in Liverpool wanted the tunnel to be designed in a way that suited the traffic. The local authorities had to promote a private Bill to get the tunnel, but they could not agree on such a Bill. They could not even agree about presenting one, never mind drafting it. The Mersey Dock and Harbour Board has done well in having drafted three Bills, which means that my right hon. Friend the Minister has had more luck than I had.
But what I think we ought to do on Merseyside now to solve this problem is to get together in a reasonable spirit. What I had to do when I was confronted with the problem to which I have just referred was to convene a meeting at the city hall. I got all the local authorities together to discuss with me the draft of a Bill which I was going to introduce if they did not introduce one. I said the nastiest things in the nicest way, and finally Birkenhead agreed to the proposal and drafted its own Bill. I give the council all the credit for agreeing to it, so we got it through. It took a long time, but it went through in the end, and then they worked together splendidly.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) said, all local authorities on Merseyside are concerned. On Mersey docks it is not only Birkenhead and Liverpool that are affected, but many other places as well. It may be that the Lancashire County Council and the Chamber of Commerce ought to come into this because they depend on the docks. Nobody around Merseyside can opt out of this situation.
Somebody spoke about the dockers. I should not be against the dockers coming in on management discussions. Nor would I be against dockers and dockers' unions becoming capitalists if they were to become capitalists as they did on the Upper Clyde. This might not be a bad idea because, if we are to have total participation and involvement in all this business, it is not a bad idea to have total financial participation on all sides, and it may solve many of the dockers' problems, as it did in America when they first introduced containerisation and gave

and sold shares in a certain manner to the dockers. They, in effect, became capitalists and were involved from then on.
I suggest that the Liverpool City Council should take the initiative by calling together all councils as I did when I was Minister of Transport, and all the Members who would like to go to such a meeting, and all the various interests, too. If we on the Merseyside are stuck with this problem only we on the Merseyside can solve it.
I hope that we can have another debate with much more detailed information than we have had so far, so that we can discuss the matter more intelligently. Above all, I hope that we can take the heat out of the problem and see whether we can instead bring more light to bear on our difficulties.

5.10 p.m.

Mr. Richard Crawshaw: I regret that this debate did not take place two or three weeks ago. I believe that the Government are not giving a bridging loan to Liverpool because of the difficulties they got themselves into over Rolls-Royce, not only in the House generally but among their own supporters. I believe that the Minister had it in mind to give this bridging loan two or three weeks ago, but was overruled by the Cabinet.
But a bridging loan would not solve all the problems of Liverpool Docks. I should be doing less than my duty if I did not try to point out some of the difficulties that will have to be overcome in order to make the docks a viable concern. We are dealing with a country that has 100 ports, many of which, including London, are losing money. It is not all that much to the discredit of Liverpool that it is losing money. I reiterate the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) about the way in which foreign ports are subsidised. One cannot put them on a par with British ports and say that foreign ports are making a profit, so why cannot Liverpool?—because we are not operating under the same circumstances.
I want to deal with the problem in three phases. I want first to say what I think about the Board; secondly, I want to give my opinion on labour relations;


and, thirdly, I want to speak about the way in which the Ministry is handling the problem. The Board has not had consultations with the people that it should have consulted. Hon. Members on both sides of the House have always been prepared to discuss problems with the Board. We have had discussions, but matters like those with which we are now dealing have never been brought up. Within a matter of weeks of having these discussions, the present problems have arisen.
If, as a result of the report made by an independent auditor, it is now deemed improper for the Board to go to the public market for more money, how was it that the Board was able to raise money in that way last year? Did the management of the Board commit a criminal offence last year when it obtained money on the market? I do not know when the circumstances that obtained last year changed to the present circumstances in a way that now makes it a criminal offence for the Board to go to the market. If the Board did not realise that that was the situation it illustrates the kind of management that we have had at the Mersey Docks. The main reason for these failures is the fact that there has been too much part-time work by the management.
Another important factor is that many of those who are on the Board have been using the facilities at the docks themselves. They have been fixing the charges to be made for facilities that they were going to use themselves. Is that the best way to make an enterprise economic? Modernisation has fallen behind—why, I do not know. The dockers have been blamed to a considerable extent for the lack of cargo that they have handled, but this has been because they have been unable to use the quaysides, owing to the material that has been stored on them. Many of the warehouses to which the stuff should have been sent were being used by the merchants in the city—the very people who were on the Board—in the form of cheap storage. Is it so mysterious that the docks have not paid their way?
For months a great proportion of the 800-strong maintenance force of the docks has sat on its backside, doing nothing, while outside contractors have been brought in to remedy defects in the dockyard cranes. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr.

Dunn) that we want to know the facts about these things. It is no use blaming one side. The dockers have received enough blame. I apportion some blame to them but let us have both sides of the picture. Many a docker has said to me, "I have not done a decent day's work for weeks, and I am on the maintenance staff. They have brought in outside contractors to do the jobs that I should be doing." Where is the logic in that? That sort of action has brought discontent to the docks.
Some people have accused the dockers of being bloody-minded. There is every reason for that. That is why I say that a bridging loan will not solve all the problems. We are here concerned with an exercise in human relations. In the last two or three years there is no doubt that the prospect of nationalisation has meant that investments have not been made and modernisation has not been carried out. An investigation should be undertaken to see how much has been hived off to private enterprise in order that it would not be there when nationalisation took place.
I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman is well versed in our economic problems and knows the harm that will arise if the investments that have been placed in the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board are written down. Perhaps they were not recommended as trustee investments, but to many people who have been brought up on the Merseyside they were gilt-edged securities, and if they are written down untold harm will be done not only to port facilities throughout the country but also to local authorities.
I have so far dealt with the matters in respect of which I feel critical about the actions of the Board. We must face the fact that one reason why Liverpool has lost money on the docks is that fewer and fewer people are sending their ships there. We must ask ourselves why. I believe that it is because of uncertainty as to the time a ship will be held up at the port when it gets there—because a strike can increase costs by £600 or £800 a day These are basic problems, going back many decades. The best manager in the world will not be able to break through and make a success of the job unless he has worked on the shop floor and knows what it is like to fear for


his job and to wonder where he will get the next penny, and has worked in the conditions in which the people in the docks have worked.
A mental blank now exists between the employers and the workers in the docks. I blame both the employers and the workers. I understand what motivates the workers, and if I were in their position I should probably be doing what they are doing, but at this stage I appeal to them to forget what has happened in the past—to forget about the scars of casual work, and about the intolerable conditions and lack of facilities. We must think about the future. The previous Government did more to raise the stature and dignity of the dock worker than any other Government, and it behoves those working in the docks now to consider the conditions under which they are working and the money that they receive, and to ask themselves whether they should throw all this overboard because they are not prepared to accept the new situation. I ask them to discuss the question frankly.
I appeal to them not to join in the one-day strike on 8th December. It is not popular to say this, but the present Government were elected last June. Every day when I see the legislation they bring in I am sickened more and more, and I am confirmed in my view that I was right to change from a Tory to a Socialist. But until the next election the Tory Government are in office, under our democratic process, and I shall never subscribe to the idea that this country should be ruled by marches outside this Parliament. I plead with the people of Liverpool, in view of the seriousness of the situation, if for no other reason, to act responsibly on 8th December and to have nothing to do with the one-day strike.
I may be wrong, but I do not believe that the Chairman and Deputy-Chairman knew when they came to London on Monday that they were to be replaced. The Minister has had dealings with them over the past few weeks.
I do not believe that the Government are acting logically or consistently. They are not acting consistently, because they give £42 million to Rolls-Royce and refuse a bridging loan to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. That they are not

acting logically was proved in the debate last night. The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications said:
We would not in this Administration think it right to go to individuals outside and ask them to take on the chairmanship of a nationalised industry before we had even told the existing chairman."—OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th November, 1970; Vol. 807, c. 984.]
The Minister who wound up the debate for the Government said that it would be absolutely wrong to go jobbing round for a successor when the present Chairman had not been notified of the intention to remove him.
I do not want to enter too deeply into the rights and wrongs of this. However, I believe that when it is intended to remove someone from office the first action taken is to look around to see who is to replace him. Let the Government be consistent and not go jobbing around, as they did last week, according to The Guardian today, for the gentleman who is to take over before either the Chairman or Deputy-Chairman was told that they were to be relieved of their posts. Let the Government be consistent, I say. That is why I criticise the Minister.

Mr. Peyton: As the hon. Gentleman is mentioning my personal reputation, perhaps I should say that the Chairman himself has been seriously and genuinely ill during the course of all that has happened. He had undertaken, very considerately, to make his resignation available at a suitable time.
As I explained to the Deputy Chairman on Monday, there has been a limit to my willingness to bring him constantly down to London for consultations which were in no way conclusive. I have done my best over a considerable period to keep clear in his mind what my intentions were, namely, that there was to be a committee which would, so to speak, sit above the Board. I want the hon. Gentleman to accept my assurance that with some limitations as to where we both were, I have done my best to keep the Deputy Chairman fully informed. The Director-General, who has been in London more frequently, has been kept up to date throughout.

Mr. Crawshaw: I accept what the right hon. Gentleman said. However, he has not answered my point that the Chairman and Deputy Chairman were not told


before Monday that they were to be removed.
Is it correct that £6 million is owing to the Board on the Seaforth project, money which has been paid out on an undertaking that the Seaforth project could go ahead but, because it was not initialled by the Department, the Government now refuse to pay? We were given to understand by the Board that if it got that £6 million it could tide itself over to next year. If this money is owing, is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to release it to the Board?
I understand that the expression "difficulties of its own making" has been used about the Board. I have told the House what I believe the difficulties of the Board have been. If these difficulties were of the Board's own making, the Minister should have an inquiry into the whole running of the Board. Unless there is such an inquiry and unless there are the frankest of disclosures, we shall never get the confidence which is necessary between management and workers.
In conclusion, is the £6 million owing; and, if so, is it to be paid? I see the Secretary of State nodding his head, but I understood that the Minister told us when we saw him a few weeks ago that it was not owing.
Is it correct, as reported in The Guardian today, that the new Chairman will not be a full-time Chairman? I am sure that most hon. Members believe that the reason things have gone overboard in Liverpool is that there has not been sufficient control. If the gentleman who has been asked to fill this post is not prepared to give full-time service, somebody else should be appointed who is prepared to do so.
What has the Minister done about trying to resolve the labour difficulties which exist in Liverpool and which are basic to the problem? Has anything been done about worker participation. Here I want to take up a point made by the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples). Unless the Government carry the workers on the docks with them and the workers feel that this is a viable undertaking, good money will be thrown after bad, because the project will not get under way.
Why are not some of those on the shop floor put on to the Executive Committee which is to be established? It may well be true that they cannot give the weighty considerations to overall policy that is expected of other Board members, but they could at least bring before the Executive Committee the difficulties and fears genuinely felt by the men on the docks. Is the Minister prepared to advise that this should be done? I believe that this is the only way of overcoming the difficulties.
I understand that the pensions are secure. It would be terrible if investments in a concern such as the Board were written down. Despite anything that we on this side say about inconsistencies over Rolls-Royce and despite any criticism the Minister has had from his hon. Friends, the Government should make a bridging loan. I am not asking that the Board should be bailed out indefinitely, but it should be given some time to make itself viable. If it is given that time, I believe that the people in Liverpool will do it. They are entitled to that and nothing less than that.

5.27 p.m.

Mr. John Tilney: I am glad to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, Toxteth (Mr. Crawshaw), because much of what he said is correct. We are over-ported, largely, I fear, with ports which are out of date. Of course we want a bridging loan, but that is not everything that is required. However, we want time for manoeuvre and that is what a bridging loan would give us.
I agree with some of the hon. Gentleman's strictures on the Board, although it is as well to remember that the Board was reorganised in 1965 in the days of the Labour Government.
There are certainly fewer ships in Liverpool, because ship-owners think that their ships will not be turned round fast enough. Last month I was in Singapore, which is a very different port from Liverpool. I have never seen more ships or more activity. The average turn-round time was only 36 hours. Admittedly, Singapore is a very different form of port. With ships costing £1,000 a day to keep, the turn-round time is of immense importance.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn) said that the wages of


the dock workers had no effect. I agree, but strikes, whether official or unofficial, frighten shipowners away. Shipowners have the option of going to many other posts, both in Britain and in Europe.
It is not my wish to apportion blame to either the Board or to the workers, not even to the Labour Party because of its nationalisation proposals, which lulled the Board into inactivity. What it is essential to debate now is how we shall get the port working at a profit, because only in that way can the pensioners be secured long term. I happen to believe that even in a nationalised industry it is essential to have the discipline of the profit motive.
We do not wish to be featherbedded on Merseyside, but we are at present on a sick bed and we need a certain amount of help, and help not particularly from the taxpayer. I should like to see help come not only from those directly involved—there are about 35,000 of them—but from those indirectly concerned who live on both banks of the Mersey. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) has called for contributions from the unions and from shipowners. The latter are now being forced, rightly in my view, to pay more, but 20 per cent. on top of a 25 per cent. rise is a pretty big levy. I should like the importers and exporters to contribute, too. But it will not be easy, as I see it, to force any of these people to come in. We must in the long run come back to the local authorities which represent all those who have interests in the port of Merseyside.
In this connection, I shall quote from the report by the accountants, Touche Ross & Co., to the National Ports Council, to which the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) has already referred. As regards Hamburg, we are told:
Port operations are included in the accounts of the City as a whole and no separate records are kept of the port as an entity. We have estimated, however, that total expenditure on the port currently exceeds total income … by over £6 million per year. If the financial conditions under which Hamburg operates were applied to the three United Kingdom ports, they would be in a position to reduce port charges on ships and goods"—
and so on. About Rotterdam, a port which I visited not long ago and which

now does three times, or more, the trade of the Port of London, the report says:
… the position is open-ended in that the City as a whole bears any deficit, but, ignoring that aspect, the application of Rotterdam conditions to the United Kingdom ports would enable them to reduce their charges by about a sixth to a third".
I am not suggesting that the local authorities should give as much help as either the people of Hamburg or the people of Rotterdam give to their ports, but there is much that we can do in our different local authorities. Unfortunately, we have no Merseyside county council—I happen to believe in that—and we are, so to speak, Balkanised on Merseyside, so we must get together to try to salve the port of Liverpool, in the same way as the ratepayers of Bristol have backed their port and those of Manchester for many years have backed the free enterprise Manchester Ship Canal. There is much to be said for municipalisation. Many of us on this side, when the Ports Bill was being debated in the last Parliament, argued in favour of such municipalisation.

Mr. Heffer: I moved a resolution in the Liverpool City Council many years ago for the municipalisation of the port of Liverpool, but it was rejected by the Conservative majority on the city council.

Mr. Tilney: Only a small portion of the port of Merseyside is now in the City of Liverpool. The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board has to deal with no fewer than eight different authorities: Liverpool, Bootle, Crosby, Wallasey, Birkenhead, Bebington, Cheshire and Lancashire.

Mr. Heffer: The Tories rejected municipalisation.

Mr. Tilney: Whatever one does singly cannot be of much use by itself, and in any case the local authorities have not at present power to guarantee. I should greatly like them to have such a power, and that is the plea I put to my right hon. Friend.
I am told that the port can well be in the black not in three years, as has been said, but in 12 months, provided that £8 million to £10 million is lent at the present market rate to make the port viable. I only hope that this can be done. Admittedly, any local authority which is asked to give a guarantee


must be shown the budget produced by the Board and must agree that that budget is sensible and such as can put the port in the black.
What of the investors? About £150 million has been invested by people in Europe and elsewhere in local authority loans. Will they differentiate between the Port of Liverpool and the City of Liverpool? Will they know that boroughs on the banks of the Mersey are not, perhaps, going the same way as the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board? It is difficult enough to bring investors in different parts of Great Britain to understand that, and I agree with those who have said that few investors are likely to lend money eagerly in the future to the Port of London Authority or to any harbour board. The same is true of some minor local authorities which have done exactly the same as the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board has done; they have had to borrow short, at the suggestion of successive Governments, in order to invest long, and their finances, too, are illiquid.
The Mersey Docks and Harbour Board never had trustee status under the old Trustee Act, but its bonds and securities were in the narrower section under the new Act. Any default by the Docks Board will be dangerous, not only for the credit of Merseyside but for the credit-worthiness of a number of local authorities. All of us who live in the different boroughs bordering the Mersey, therefore, have a direct interest in what will happen to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. A partial default would be dangerous for us. In any case, what about the £40,000 loss on the Mersey ferry terminal? Who is to look after that loss, or are the ferries to stop?
Confidence is a shy animal. It is in all our interests, but particularly in the interests of all the Merseyside boroughs, to avoid a default. I am not asking for any money from the taxpayer or from the ratepayer. I am asking for power to be given to the Merseyside local authorities to guarantee the capital and interest of any bonds which are issued by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board on the market. This has been done before. Between the wars—I remember that Austria was one case—this country guaranteed some of the bonds issued by certain countries. It could be done in

this case quite easily by each of the eight local authorities taking a fraction of the obligation.
We are in for tough times on Merseyside, but we can stand on our own. The port must go on. A third of the population of the United Kingdom lives within 100 miles of Liverpool. We do £1,000 million in trade every year. The port is sick. We need some help, or, rather, means to help ourselves. There are people in the port, some anarchists, who would be only too delighted to see our trade through the port founder.
We require some bridging finance from somewhere and we cannot get this without guarantees being given by the local authorities. Let us use our own credit-worthiness in the different boroughs to come to the aid of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. Neither the world nor the United Kingdom taxpayer owes us a living. I accept that a painless solution cannot be reached. If we are to avoid being hanged we have to hang together. I ask my right hon. Friend to give us the means to do just that, to give us time to avoid a partial default.
The Government are right to be tough on maladministration and unnecessary strikes. They have to say "No" some time to the issue of public money and, of course, we dislike it when such a policy hits us on Merseyside. The Minister called for a new united effort and said that he would gladly take any step to help. If he is to deny us the money, at least give us the chance to help ourselves.

5.42 p.m.

Mr. Eric Ogden: The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney), with his knowledge of the Port of Liverpool and of the shipping industry throughout the world, offers this House as his considered opinion to the solution of the present problem on Merseyside the suggestion that we should get together and hold a collection. If that is the best he can offer, I will not hang with him or his Government tonight. Hon. Members opposite have suggested from time to time that we on this side have been hasty, unfortunate, that we have been rushing our fences, that we ought to have waited for more information from the Government or elsewhere before we tried to force this debate.
May I remind hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite that what started this operation was simply the doubt raised in my mind and possibly the minds of other hon. Members as a result of the statement on the future of the Mersey Docks and Harbours Board. That statement was made not in the House of Commons last Friday when we were in session from 11 o'clock in the morning until 4.30 in the afternoon and when there was a minister present from the Department of Trade and Industry—there was ample opportunity then for statement in the House, but, instead, the announcement came from the Dock Board offices in Merseyside, at the Pier Head. There could have been a dual statement.
Over the weekend all we heard were reports of the statement and on the Monday we heard that the Chairman and members of the Board were invited down to meet the Minister. There was no indication in any of the leaks—and the present Government are as good at kite flying as any Chinese Emperor ever was—that there was to be a statement by the Minister in the House on Monday afternoon. We were right to try to get some Private Notice Questions down, and maybe that played some part in forcing the Government to make their statement rather than face a Private Notice Question. I do not say that it did, but it may have done, because until that time no information had been forthcoming.

Mr. Dunn: My hon. Friend will remember that on Monday morning in the Daily Telegraph there was an announcement that a receiver was to be appointed. That also might have suggested that a statement had to be made.

Mr. Ogden: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. If information were to be made available to the House of Commons there were ways in which the Government could have indicated that they were more than willing and able to come to the House on Monday afternoon and to make that statement. The result was that a debate was forced, which they might think is unfortunate. As the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) has suggested, this does not prevent a further debate a little later if and when we get more information. I do not think that this debate has done any harm.
There is a great desire shown by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to forget past history. There are some kinds of history that it is right to remember and some which it is advisable to forget. There are some pieces of history about which I want to remind the House. I cannot forget that the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board is the Western gateway to these islands and the Western gateway to the oceans of the world outside. I cannot forget that that Western gateway is important not only for Merseyside and Lancashire but for the whole of the North-West, for the whole of the Midlands and, indeed, for the United Kingdom economy. This is no mere local row taking place among half-a-dozen boroughs on Merseyside. Think of the cotton industry, the coal industry, ore and machinery, imports, exports, think of anything. This is a national matter, not one that can be taken away and hidden in some far-off corner of the region.
Part of that port's history was recognised at least by Sir Winston Churchill. In his book "Their Finest Hour" he referred to the port and the estuaries and harbours of Merseyside. He said:
As November and December (1940) drew on, the entrances and estuaries of the Mersey and the Clyde far surpassed in mortal significance all other factors in the War.
I do not believe that Sir Winston Churchill's Government would have treated the Mersey Docks and Harbours Board as the present Government have treated it. From the time when I was a merchant sailor, sailing in and out of the port of Liverpool—and the finest sight in the British Isles or anywhere else in the world for a sailor is the New Brighton Lighthouse on one side and the Pier Head and the Docks Board on the other side—I have looked forward and worked for the day when the port of Merseyside could be the finest port in Western Europe, linked by air, road, by rail through a Channel tunnel to the continent of Europe.
That has been my dream and my hope. It has been partly shattered, deferred and delayed by the announcement of the Government, but I hope that we shall be able to win through and to build the kind of port which I believe every hon. Member representing Merseyside wants and which, to be fair even the present Government want.
I want to compare the present attitude of the Conservative Government towards the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board with the attitude of the previous Labour Government to Cammell Laird. A little earlier today, through one of the Opposition Whips, I said that I was likely to compare the present attitude of Merseyside Conservative Members towards the help that has been given to the Docks Board with the claims that they were making for help from the Labour Government with Cammell Laird and what they said about help for one side of the river as compared with the help for the other side.
I will get that over as quickly as I can, but it has to be put on to the record now. Then I want to go ahead and look at the management of the Board and its future. Cammell Laird, as we all know, was a private enterprise with a proud history. It needed financial help because of its financial and managerial incompetence. The only hope was Government aid, and we all wanted to help. The Labour Government, particularly through the Paymaster-General, were the first to provide that help through the I.R.C. When the Conservative Government destroyed the I.R.C., they destroyed one of the best ways of making that help possible for the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman says that he is speaking for the record. What we Conservative Members wanted the Labour Government to do was to give Cammell Laird that part of the refitting of the nuclear submarines of which it was capable. My questions were directed to that end.

Mr. Ogden: I remember from the campaign in which we were all involved that there were promises of help from a new Conservative Government, for another Polaris submarine, for frigates, rebuilding, Navy contracts, everything but the kitchen sink. The right hon. and learned Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) had an honourable part in that campaign but others among his colleagues on Merseyside were not quite so honourable or so helpful. I put on record that over the past years there has been in Merseyside the fortunate situation whereby Members of Parliament of different parties have been able to hold each other in

respect, to have violent disagreements from time to time but equally to work together from time to time. That respect is in some jeopardy because there is a great contrast between what Conservative Members were saying about Cammell Laird and what they are now saying about the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board.
The right hon. and learned Member for Wirral, a very responsible and respected Member of this House, tried very hard to get help for Cammell Laird and when that help was announced, on 7th May, by the then Paymaster-General, he said:
Is the Paymaster General aware that all of us who represent Merseyside constituencies wholeheartedly welcome the objective of the right hon. Gentleman to save the employment of these 20,000 men?"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th May, 1970; Vol. 801, c. 595.]
That was a six-line comment. His comment about the help coming from the present Government has been much longer, much less enthusiastic and much more critical, and I can only regret that the efforts he has made, very responsible efforts, to get help for the Board have not had the success from his Government that we hoped they would have. It was not for want of trying, but there is a difference between the two responses.
The right hon. Member for Wallasey did not say much about Cammell Laird and as far as I know has said little in the past about the Board. But he remembers Merseyside well. He has a good memory. Yesterday, he seemed to accept without any criticism at all the Government's decision. Today he has been much more constructive and much more critical. There is a change today from what he said yesterday. I want to read carefully in HANSARD what he has said, because when he is at his most reasonable, most understanding and most "let us all get together", that is when he is most dangerous.
I am glad to see the hon. Member for Bebington (Mr. Cockeram) in his place throughout the debate. We have worked together on this venture for the Board. He and I have been at the same meetings. Yet I have not heard him—and perhaps it is my own fault—making the claims for the Board which he made for Cammell Laird. I have to say to his face that if ever an hon. Member came to this House on the basis of a false prospectus, he did, because the campaign which brought him


here was based on a false prospectus. He said very different things in his claim for Cammell Laird from what he has said for the Board.
The present Minister for Local Government and Development, the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), supported our case for help for the Board. The Seaforth Dock is right on his constituency. How will he vote tonight? How will all these right hon. and hon. Members opposite vote?
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Mr. Fortescue) is a silent Member, although he has listened to the debate. He has taken part in all the negotiations of which I know and all the meetings with the Board. He is a silent Member because he has duties to the Government as a junior Whip. He has nothing to lose in this but his job as a junior Whip and the respect of his fellow Merseyside Members. How will he vote?
Now for the hon. Member for Waver-tree. After all he said about Polaris submarines, frigates, repair facilities and everything but the kitchen sink for Cammell Laird, the best he could say today was, "Let us have a collection among the local authorities". There is a complete contrast between the claims he made for Cammell Laird and the begging bowl he is suggesting now. Even if I am breaking the rules of order, I must say that I regard him in this as John "Pass-the-Buck" Tilney.

Mr. Tilney: The hon. Gentleman cannot have heard what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) said. We were asking the Labour Government to give proper repairing facilities for the Polaris submarines to Cammell Laird. That was denied to Cammell Laird by the Labour Government. I am merely suggesting that we should pledge the credit of the local authorities around Merseyside—I do not want to increase the rates in any way—so that the Board can go to the private enterprise market for its money.

Mr. Ogden: What the hon. Gentleman said about the Polaris submarines and Cammell Laird is on record both in Parliament and in the Liverpool Post and the Liverpool Echo. He must know more about local government than he is pre-

tending. Everyone of us knows that the local authorities have no power to raise revenue from their rates for private enterprise unless they get that power from Parliament, and they have not got it. The only solution which the hon. Gentleman can offer the House is to hold a collection.
I will try to be a little more helpful to the Minister for Transport Industries and I begin by thanking him sincerely for the help that I believe he tried to obtain for the Board. He is, as everyone knows, a tough "cookie"—and that is not meant to be disrespectful. He made visits to Merseyside, which had their moments, and from the meetings he had with local Labour Members of Parliament and from the advice which he received from his right hon. and hon. Friends from Merseyside, I believe that he understood the problems. He gave no commitment at all to any hon. Member who came to see him. He said, "I cannot say what we will or will not do". But I was convinced that he understood the problems and the urgent need for some bridging financial support.
I believe that the recommendations he made to the Secretary of State were more favourable and more helpful than those he has announced and which he is in duty bound to defend today. I would like to know what those recommendations were, and perhaps the weekend papers will tell us. It is possible—information gets around in this place—that even the Secretary of State made recommendations to the Cabinet and the Prime Minister which were more favourable and more helpful than those announced. I believe that those recommendations were, however, overridden by the Cabinet and by the Prime Minister. Our new Prime Minister does not know a lot about Merseyside. All I would say to him is to keep himself and his bloody boat out of the Mersey.
Now for the present and the future. The appointments to the Board have gone some way in the right direction. I think that there is complete agreement on both sides of the House that there has to be a drastic reorganisation of the old ways of the Board. My complaint to the Minister is that he has left too many members of the old Board. All the members gave good service to the Board as far as they could or as far as they saw their duty, but there are still too


many of them left on the new Board. Incidentally, I do not know of any other organisation which has a two-tier system of top government. It is really a large committee and the work is to be done by an executive committee. If the Minister is to be a butcher, he has to wield his axe more firmly in future than in the past.
The newspapers today reported that Mr. R. L. E. Lawrence, General Manager of the London Midland Region of British Rail, did not know that he was going to be appointed.

Mr. Peyton: I am not responsible for all the reports that appear in the newspapers. I know that Mr. Lawrence was aware of the position but I am advised that he was not certain whether the news had become public and whether he should not be cautious in his reaction.

Mr. Ogden: Tact is appreciated from whichever quarter it comes. The right hon. Gentleman has cleared up a point and I am grateful to him for doing so. The right hon. Gentleman has appointed Mr. John Cuckney as Chairman and Sir Matthew Stevenson as Deputy Chairman of the Board, with possibly one or two other members, and their function will be to reorganise the structure of management of the Board. It will be an internal, managerial operation. Here, I take up a point put by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Toxteth (Mr. Crawshaw). Whom did the Minister consult in making these appointments? A few days ago, the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications was saying that it was not his or the Government's intention to canvass the opinions of the workers in any industry for which the Government were responsible. So, on whose advice were these appointments made—on the advice of the I.R.C., the C.B.I., the T.U.C. or anyone else?
I think that there is still an urgent need for a professional board full time that will organise and arrange the professional operations of the Board. It is needed not only at director level. With all due regard to the services which individual managers of the departments have done, there have to be some pretty hefty and dramatic changes in management itself.
Just as with Cammell Laird, it was not just a matter of clearing out the old

board, but of bringing in professional people from other shipyards in order to get the best expertise available, so we have to go all the way through the Docks Board office to get all the necessary management knowledge. We need reorganisation of the professional management all the way down the line. Productivity must begin to be discussed inside the Dock Board Office, and at long last there must be a first genuine attempt to involve those who work in the docks in responsibility for the circumstances in which they work.
It has been suggested that the Mersey Docks and Harbours Board employs more militants who are more reckless than most. I do not think that that is so, but the more I hear about the activities of the Board, the more I can understand anyone who works for it becoming bitter and militant. However, I agree with those whose advice about the demonstration on 8th December is that workers should take the advice of their union officers. The strike will do no good for the men or the port.
The assets of the Board may have to be sold to provide some ready capital. I hope that the Minister will be careful about to whom he disposes of these assets. A Board in difficulty may be tempted to under-price its assets, to have long-term losses for temporary gains. This has to be very carefully controlled.
It has been necessary to have the debate at least to get something out of the way before we go ahead: there must be more involvement locally, but we could not allow this opportunity to pass. Anyone on Merseyside who thought that there were no differences between the Labour and Conservative on 18th June now knows what the differences are.

6.2 p.m.

Mr. Eric Cockeram: I regret the tone of the speech of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden). The hon. Member made a series of personal attacks which contributed nothing to a solution of the problems of the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. I am interested in the future rather than the past, because Merseysiders are more concerned about the future of the Board than with throwing mud at individuals because of alleged incidents in the past.
I implore the Minister to ensure that the new Bill, which we understand is to


be introduced early in the new year, contains certain provisions one of which will be to permit the Board to pursue sound financial policies rather than be subject to Treasury control and forced to borrow short when spending long, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wirral (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd) mentioned. That is the traditional bankers' error and it is one which the present Board has been forced to pursue.
Secondly, I make the plea that the new Bill will ensure that the Board is more of a harbour board and less of a dock board. It is clearly necessary for dredging, piloting, marking the channel and so on to be undertaken by a harbour board, but it is clearly not necessary for so many of the dock facilities to be provided at the expense of the taxpayer.
Many of the docks on Merseyside, as at other ports, are in effect one-company docks, used exclusively by one company for its regular sailing lines. It is unnecessary for these dock facilities, sheds and so on, to be owned and employees and dockers employed by an amorphous body somewhere across the river. There is no reason why the shipping lines concerned cannot provide their own facilities. Shell, for example, has considerable facilities in my constituency and it has its own facilities in many ports around the world. In this country it provides storage and pipeline facilities, but the last few hundred yards of those pipelines to the ships are provided by the Docks Board. That is quite unnecessary, for Shell is perfectly capable of providing all its facilities on Merseyside, as it does elsewhere. I should like the new Bill to enable the various shipping companies to provide more of their own purpose-built facilities than is now the case.
Finally, I make the plea that the new Bill will provide for pilotage facilities to be arranged in closer consultation with the pilots. There is considerable apprehension on the Mersey because, as tankers get larger and larger, with the bridge at the stern the pilot of such a vessel in a crowded river cannot always see what is going on just below the bows. On Merseyside it is feared that this will lead to an accident, such as that which occurred elsewhere. I hope that the

Minister will make provision for pilotage facilities to be arranged in closer consultation with the pilots.

Mr. Cledwyn Hughes: Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear that the new Bill to which he refers is not the new Private Member's Bill which was laid in the House last Friday and which affects Anglesey and which is not guaranteed to go through the House?

Mr. Cockeram: I was referring not to that but to the new Bill to be introduced early in the new year.

6.6 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Mulley: I am not sure to which Bill the hon. Member for Bebington (Mr. Cockeram) was referring. If he goes to the Vote Office, he will find that there is a Private Bill concerned with reorganisation which has already been published. Perhaps the Secretary of State will confirm, because I do not think that it has been publicly stated, that the Government are to bring in a Bill during the present Session.
Several hon. Members have suggested that it was a mistake to debate the subject today. I do not accept that. I agree with the right hon. Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) who said that we do not have enough information to form final views on the merits or otherwise of these proposals. However, I still believe that it is a function of the House of Commons to require explanations of the policies of Ministers, and I cannot think of a better place to probe such policies than on the Floor of the House.
The tone of the debate has been of serious concern for the future of a great port. I do not think that anyone has tried to make any party political point. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) said, while it seriously concerns the whole of Merseyside, it is of national concern because of the importance of Liverpool as a port through which so many of our exports go. We are all concerned with the situation, and we realise that radical action is necessary.
I do not want to go too far into the past, but the Minister said that as his predecessor I should have known how serious the financial situation was. I


interjected to say that under the Conservative legislation setting up the National Ports Council, while the Council received financial and other statistical information, it was expressly enjoined not to make that information available to the Minister or his advisers. When the Ports Bill was going through the House, I did not know and could not give the House a clear financial forecast, and I made that clear on Second Reading.
However, I then said that, as everyone in the House knew, a number of ports, including Liverpool, were losing money and there were serious financial problems to be faced by the new ports board, once set up. I do not want to re-fight our arguments about port nationalisation and I accept the right hon. Gentleman's sincerity in trying to find the best solution to the problem. I agree that the situation in Liverpool is a challenge to everyone involved in the working of the port.
I am sure that the whole House also joins the Minister in wishing Mr. John Cuckney and Sir Matthew Stevenson well in the very difficult jobs they have undertaken. But whilst I in no way wish to bring in personalities, the House is entitled, in the light of yesterday's debate, to an answer to the question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Toxteth (Mr. Crawshaw) as to how those gentlemen were appointed before the Deputy Chairman had been told that he was no longer required.
Second, the House, is entitled to know how it was that the members of the Board, having been asked to see the Minister, no doubt read in the Daily Telegraph on their way down an accurate forecast of what they would be told, way ahead of the House of Commons hearing it. Indeed, I believe that the report included the name of the gentleman it was proposed to appoint as the Receiver. Hon. Members will have noticed that that newspaper boasts that it exclusively forecast yesterday the outcome of a meeting that had still not been held, and I am informed that the other party was totally unaware of the nature of the business the Minister wished to discuss. We are entitled to be told how this came about.
We are all concerned to make this "immensely important port" viable, successful and efficient, to quote the Minister's words. I do not doubt the sincerity of the Minister for Transport

Industries. I confess a personal preference for the title "Minister of Transport", but I shall not develop that point now. When he came new to the job, the Minister took a new look at the port industry, as I did eight months before, and he very fairly summed up what he found when he addressed the Institute of Transport. The Port newspaper of 19th November reported him as saying:
Consider our ports … the diagnosis of a newcomer is clear—our ports have been conducted not as independent undertakings but as things annexed to and subordinated to other activities. They have been managed on an amateur and part-time basis.
His later remarks might have had the Port of Liverpool in mind. What he said is very relevant not only to Liverpool but to the number of other important ports with the same kind of statutory public trust organisation, with a predominant membership of shipowners and port users. He said:
Port users have been allowed, even encouraged, to pay as little as possible and to take as much as they could. Add to that permanent staff with no career structure and meagre prospects, and the present state of affairs is at least partially explained.
What the cure may be, is difficult to say; I would only hazard the opinion that it is not going to be based on the suggestion that everything is someone else's fault.
The right hon. Gentleman having seen so clearly the problem of the ports and made a speech that I should have been proud to make introducing the Ports Bill, it is deplorable that he has now proposed a solution that gives the Government control but totally without responsibility. For example, instead of the Minister or the Secretary of State appointing a quarter of the membership of the Board, he is to appoint the whole membership. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Dell) said, this must be the cheapest take-over in history. Whilst I do not want to argue the merits or otherwise of nationalisation I think that the proposals we put before the House would have gone a long way to resolve a number of these issues not only for Liverpool but elsewhere, particularly because we were bringing into the total picture the profitable part of the industry, the port businesses as well as the port operations.
The most doctrinaire person is someone who just says, whatever the situation, that public ownership is totally out. I


agree that people who want public ownership for every industry are also doctrinaire, but the right hon. Gentleman must not think that he escapes the label of "doctrinaire" because he takes the opposite view—that no public ownership should be involved, that no public money should be involved—when the Government are now seeking control over the Port of Liverpool and doing it by cutting down by 30 per cent. the investment of those people that have lent money.
We want to know from the Government more clearly now than we learnt yesterday or at the beginning of this debate why no bridging operation is possible, why the Government are not willing, if the local authorities in the area would be willing, as some hon. Members have suggested, to give a credit guarantee. Seemingly, that is all that was required to avoid the other very unpleasant measures involved in this package.
The Government cannot escape responsibility—they should not even seek to do so—by saying that the Private Bill that is to come before the House is the responsibility of the Board. They have now appointed the people who are to run the Board. That is what the statement yesterday was all about. I understand that the whole of the arrangements are designed as a temporary step between now and when that Private Bill becomes law.
Have the Government considered what they will do if the House will not pass the Bill in its present form? It is not for me to say whether the House should do so, but, like my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead, I must say that the Bill contains provisions of confiscation by Act of Parliament. I believe it to be almost without precedent that that should be done by a Private Measure.
It is all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say quite fairly, that investors who make mistakes lose their money. But none of the people concerned is an investor, in the sense that none of the bonds or securities are equity or risk capital. I understand that they are all fixed interest investments. Quite apart from the merits of this case, I ask the Minister who is to reply to address himself to the point made from both sides of the House about what the pro-

posal will do for the credit standing of public authorities generally.
I happen to have a copy of one such bond. It is headed:
'Mersey Docks and Harbour Board, incorporated as a public trust by Act of Parliament of 1857.
It says quite clearly that it will be redeemed on a certain date, provided that
… if, with the holder's consent, a later date shall be appointed by endorsement …
payment would be deferred. There is no suggestion that such a right will be defeated by a Private Act introduced with Government approval. I think that the lady whose bond that is will get her money, because it is to be redeemed next January. But that is the other great unfairness. Nobody knows when the Private Bill, if it becomes an Act, will come into operation. Some people will be paid in full perhaps the day before it gets Royal Assent and some people, whose bonds mature shortly after that, will not only have their repayment date deferred by two years but will get back only 70 per cent. of the sum due. The passage of a Measure with such a provision will cause great anxiety to many hon. Members on both sides.
Is it right for the Government to defend a scheme the whole fabric of which is based on the capital reconstruction set out in the Private Bill? What will the Government do, and what will the great port of Liverpool do, if midway through next year a Committee of this House, having heard the evidence, throws out the Private Bill or requires it to be very substantially amended?
Without stirring up too much of the past, may I say that I hope that all hon. Members who sent me letters about compensation for the Manchester Ship Canal Company shareholders will be equally assiduous in promoting petitions in this matter. In the case of the Manchester Ship Canal Company, we were to pay full compensation on the basis of a valuation that the Stock Exchange, which understands these matters, had assessed to be right. The bond holders or preference and fixed-interest shareholders of the Manchester Ship Canal Company would have received a litte more. Certainly under my proposals the Mersey bondholders would have got 100 per cent. of their money.
I am glad that the Seaforth scheme, which was one of the first matters I looked at as Minister of Transport, is going forward. It is true that £16 million has been paid out in respect of the scheme, but there is still a substantial sum to go. I wonder whether the Government would have authorised this scheme had it not already been under construction as the result of the approval of the previous Government? We are still waiting to hear, as is the City of Bristol, for example, about the future of the modernisation grants. I have a Question down for answer tomorrow on this matter. Will they continue to be paid? If so, at what rate and what sum is expected to be paid next year?
We need to be told the answers to a large number of questions. The House of Commons is the place in which Ministers should defend their policies and, through hon. Members, inform the public. While we do not want to have party arguments or to re-fight the battles of previous nationalisation Bills, we and all the people who live on Merseyside, and particularly the workers and pensioners of the Board, want the fullest information. In particular, people are entitled to know what will happen if the Private Bill is not passed. Why have not the Government themselves taken the responsibility of introducing a Bill to deal with the local authorities?
The Secretary of State must seek to allay our anxieties tonight. Like many hon. Members, I was much impressed by the Minister's appeal not to divide the House. This might, although I am not convinced that it would, make a difference to the situation in Liverpool. We are seeking to judge whether the Government have discharged their responsibility to the House of Commons. Unless we get satisfactory answers to the questions posed, not only by me, but by hon. Members on both sides of the House, I must advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to divide on the Motion to register our concern and anxiety about the great port of Liverpool, and to put on record our view that what the Government have done and propose to do does not represent an adequate or fair solution of a very real problem.

6.24 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Peter Walker): I thank the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park

(Mr. Mulley) for what he has said about the tone of the debate. The House has shown that it is extremely concerned about a very difficult problem and about all those who might be threatened as a result of what might happen in this great port.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Toxteth (Mr. Crawshaw) asked about the payment of £6 million in respect of Seaforth. I am informed that all payments which should legally have been made have been made. The question of the port making certain payments before applications are made will be dealt with in the normal way. I am assured, however, that this point makes no difference to the cash flow. These payments are for the development of Seaforth and they will have to be used for that purpose. However, I understand the hon. Gentleman's anxiety about this point.
The hon. Member for Toxteth made a comparison with the provision of finance for Rolls-Royce. The money being provided for Seaforth is a direct analogy with the Rolls-Royce situation. In both cases, development money is being provided by the Government. About £40 million will be provided for the Seaforth scheme.
The hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. Dunn), in a very constructive and helpful speech, said that it was vital that the men and unions in Liverpool should be aware of all the facts and be well informed about what is happening and what is likely to happen. I share his view. One of the first actions of Mr. Cuckney has been to make contact with the unions, and I know that he is shortly to meet the union leaders. I am confident that he will go out of his way to ensure that the best possible communications exist between the new management and the unions and that the facts are disclosed to them.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Wallasey (Mr. Marples) produced some interesting and important figures concerning comparisons in charges between various authorities. I do not propose to give him the figures for which he asks, not because I am not able to produce them, but because they would deceive him. I am advised that the basis of charges differs considerably from one port to another. Therefore, it would deceive him if I gave him any basic


figures. Perhaps we can go into this matter in greater depth and try to make the comparisons for which he asks.
The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park asked questions about the manner in which news of the appointment of a receiver leaked out in the Daily Telegraph yesterday. There has been speculation for some time on the possibility of a receiver being appointed. It was suggested that Sir John Nicholson would be the receiver. I say this without disrespect to those who made the suggestion, but nobody was more shocked than Sir John or the Government by it. I do not have him in mind as the receiver.
The right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park paid tribute to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Transport Industries for the patient way in which he has endeavoured to meet Liverpool's problems. I join the right hon. Gentleman in that tribute. Having worked closely with my right hon. Friend, I know the immense amount of trouble that he has taken to find solutions which will enable the port of Liverpool to survive and thereafter to expand. In all the actions which my right hon. Friend has taken, sometimes in an advisory capacity in offering Liverpool whatever knowledge was available to him and in making suggestions about people who might help, my right hon. Friend has taken a great deal of trouble. Hon. Members on both sides of the House are aware of my right hon. Friend's considerable anxiety and his attempt to find a proper and sensible solution to this problem.
I turn to what the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park said about the position of the bondholders. He intimated that the January bondholders, and not the rest, would be met in full. The Board said in its statement yesterday that one of the reasons for appointing a receiver was its inability to meet the claims of the January bondholders.

Mr. Mulley: My reading of the Bill was that at law the claims of the January bondholders would be met whereas others would not. Whether the Board can find the money is not within my knowledge.

Mr. Walker: Unfairness would have occurred if bridging finance had been provided, because it would have been for

the payment of the January bonds. For bridging finance of the dimension that has been talked of it would have been necessary to write down the existing loan capital of the Board. The Board has made it clear that equity will be provided to the bond holders whose capital is affected.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about the Manchester Ship Canal, but I do not want to go into that in the short time available. This is quite a different matter.
In introducing the debate the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer) very understandably, expressed primarily the deep concern of the men employed in the ports about redundancies and the effect that this was likely to have on the port. I understand fully his apprehension about this. In an area of high unemployment such as Merseyside the alternative is not necessarily the provision of some other occupation, it is unemployment. I understand the fears created by the prospect of unemployment, and I appeal to him to do all he can to see that the new management is given every co-operation by the unions concerned. The hon. Gentleman quoted Mr. Cuckney as talking about redundancy straight away. In fact, John Cuckney did not say this yesterday—

Mr. Heffer: I did not say he talked about redundancy. He said that the port would be on a lower key, and I said that this could well mean redundancy.

Mr. Walker: From what I know, what he said yesterday was rather the opposite. He said that his main purpose and that of his colleagues was to see that the Port of Liverpool became an expanding port. This is the way to tackle the potential problem of redundancy. I happen to know that he said that at Press conferences yesterday. Sometimes there are differences between what is said and what is reported. I believe that Mr. Cuckney will make a genuine attempt to get proper liaison and communication between unions and management. I believe also that Sir Matthew Stevenson, whom I know well as he was until recently my Permanent Secretary, will do all he can to ensure that the Port of Liverpool has an important future.
Let us try to understand the changes that have taken place. In 1964 this port was making a surplus after meeting all its


commitments—interest charges and everything. This year it will be making a deficit approaching £3 million. This is during a period of expanding world trade, expanding exports and a substantial increase in imports into the Port of Liverpool.

Mr. Heffer: London lost £2 million.

Mr. Walker: There is agreement on both sides that there is considerable potential for the improvement of the port, given good management and good labour relationships. This is really the key.
The hon. Member for Kirkdale mentioned rates. When rates have been increased, and it is found that the rates can be borne, it is frequently asked why they were not put up before. This is a perfectly genuine query.
The hon. Member for Walton argued that certain of the assets of the port would be continuing and should be used, but I am sure he will agree that there are assets of the port which, given sound management, might be put to better use.
Whenever there are strikes someone always says that the dockers are to blame, although it may be the fault of management. I am not trying to apportion blame between management and unions, but in the first eleven months of this year on average there were 560 men on strike each day and on average 435 men absent without authority. This illustrates that the port has not been operating properly. I am not trying to apportion blame between unions and management—

Mr. Heffer: Will the right hon. Gentleman make it absolutely clear that the dockers do not work for the Dock Board but for private employers who in turn have a relationship with the Dock Board?

Mr. Walker: I am aware of that. The hon. Gentleman knows that if a port has such a record of absenteeism and strikes something is fundamentally wrong and needs to be put right.
Merseyside has had to face the considerable shock of being a major port that everyone thought was solvent and bound to continue in prosperity but which, for a number of reasons associated with the way in which it has been run, has ceased to be so. For some the answer is to provide a subsidy. It is said that because the Europeans provide a subsidy we should provide a subsidy to meet the problem. My argument is that the Port of Liverpool does not need a subsidy; it needs good management and good relations between men and management. There will then be no need for a subsidy to be paid by those who have invested in the port, or by local authorities or Government. The course of action which we are suggesting will give the opportunity for a major break-through in the running of the port.
It has been said that one-third of this country is dependent on and related to the activities of this port. With sound management by a new team which includes leading representatives of the trade union movement I believe, given good will, that we shall look back upon this as a tragic incident which brought people to their senses, introduced sound management into a great port and provided a great future for a port which performs such an important activity.

Question put, That this House do now adjourn:—

The House divided: Ayes 226, Noes 272.

Division No. 39.]
AYES
[6.40 p.m.


Abse, Leo
Brown, Hugh D. (G'gow, Provan)
Cox, Thomas (Wandsworth, Central)


Allen, Scholefield
Brown, Bob (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, W.)
Crawshaw, Richard


Armstrong, Ernest
Brown, Ronald (Shoreditch &amp; F'bury)
Cronin, John


Ashton, Joe
Buchan, Norman
Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony


Atkinson, Norman
Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Cunningham, Dr. J. A. (Whitehaven)


Bagier, Gordon A. T.
Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James
Dalyell, Tam


Barnett, Joel
Campbell, I. (Dunbartonshire, West)
Darling, Rt. Hn. George


Beaney, Alan
Cant, R. B.
Davidson, Arthur


Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood
Carmichael, Neil
Davies, Denzil (Llanelly)


Bennett, James (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Carter, Ray (Birmingh'm, Northfield)
Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)


Bidwell, Sydney
Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara
Davies, Ifor (Gower)


Bishop, E. S.
Clark, David (Colne Valley)
Davies, S. O. (Merthyr Tydvil)


Blenkinsop, Arthur
Cocks, Michael (Bristol, S.)
Davis, Clinton (Hackney, Central)


Boardman, H. (Leigh)
Cohen, Stanley
Deakins, Eric


Booth, Albert
Coleman, Donald
de Freitas, Rt. Hn. Sir Geoffrey


Bottomley, Rt. Hn. Arthur
Concannon, J. D.
Delargy, H. J.


Boyden, James (Bishop Auckland)
Conlan, Bernard
Dell, Rt. Hn. Edmund


Bradley, Tom
Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Dempsey, James




Devlin, Miss Bernadette
Lambie, David
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)


Doig, Peter
Lamond, James
Price, William (Rugby)


Dormand, J. D.
Latham, Arthur
Probert, Arthur


Douglas, Dick (Stirlingshire, E.)
Lawson, George
Rankin, John


Douglas-Mann, Bruce
Leadbitter, Ted
Reed, D. (Sedgefield)


Driberg, Tom
Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)


Duffy, A. E. P.
Lestor, Miss Joan
Rhodes, Geoffrey


Dunn, James A.
Lever, Rt. Hn. Harold
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Eadie, Alex
Lewis, Arthur (W. Ham N.)
Roberts, Rt. Hn. Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
Lipton, Marcus
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Edwards, William (Merioneth)
Lomas, Kenneth
Roderick, Caerwyn E. (Br'c'n &amp; R'dnor)


Ellis, Tom
Loughlin, Charles
Rodgers, William (Stockton-on-Tees)


English, Michael
Lyons, Edward (Bradford, East)
Roper, John


Evans, Fred
McCann, John
Rose, Paul B.


Faulds, Andrew
McCartney, Hugh
Ross, Rt. Hn. William (Kilmarnock)


Fernyhough, E.
McElhone, Frank
Sheldon, Robert (Ashton-under-Lyne)


Fisher, Mrs. Doris (B'ham, Ladywood)
McGuire, Michael
Short, Rt. Hn. Edward (N'c'tle-u-Tyne)


Foley, Maurice
Mackie, John
Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)


Foot, Michael
Mackintosh, John P.
Silkin, Rt. Hn. John (Deptford)


Ford, Ben
Maclennan, Robert
Silkin, Hn. S. C. (Dulwich)


Forrester, John
McMillan, Tom (Glasgow, C.)
Sillars, James


Freeson, Reginald
McNamara, J. Kevin
Silverman, Julius


Galpern, Sir Myer
MacPherson, Malcolm
Skinner, Dennis


Gilbert, Dr. John
Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)
Smith, John (Lanarkshire, North)


Ginsburg, David
Marks, Kenneth
Spriggs, Leslie


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hn. P. C.
Marquand, David
Stallard, A. W.


Grant, George (Morpeth)
Marsh, Rt. Hn. Richard
Steel, David


Grant, John D. (Islington, East)
Mason, Rt. Hn. Roy
Stewart, Donald (Western Isles)


Griffiths, Eddie (Brightside)
Meacher, Michael
Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael (Fulham)


Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.
Mellish, Rt. Hn. Robert
Stoddart, David (Swindon)


Hamilton, James (Bothwell)
Mendelson, John
Strang, Gavin


Hardy, Peter
Mikardo, Ian
Swain, Thomas


Harper, Joseph
Millan, Bruce
Taverne, Dick


Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)
Miller, Dr. M. S.
Thomas, Rt. Hn. George (Cardiff, W.)


Hattersley, Roy
Milne, Edward (Blyth)
Tomney, Frank


Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis
Molloy, William
Torney, Tom


Heffer, Eric S.
Morgan, Elystan (Cardiganshire)
Tuck, Raphael


Horam, John
Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)
Urwin, T. W.


Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Morris, Charles R. (Openshaw)
Varley, Eric G.


Hughes, Rt. Hn. Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Moyle, Roland
Walker, Harold (Doncaster)


Hughes, Dr. Mark (Durham)
Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick
Wallace, George


Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen, North)
Murray, Ronald King
Watkins, David


Hughes, Roy (Newport)
Ogden, Eric
Weitzman, David


Hunter, Adam
O'Halloran, Michael
Wellbeloved, James


Janner, Greville
O'Malley, Brian
White, James (Glasgow, Pollok)


Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n &amp; St. P'cras, S.)
Orbach, Maurice
Whitehead, Phillip


Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)
Oswald, Thomas
Whitlock, William


John, Brynmor
Palmer, Arthur
Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick


Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Pannell, Rt. Hn. Charles
Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)


Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)
Pardoe, John
Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)


Johnson, Walter (Derby, South)
Parker, John (Dagenham)
Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton)


Johnston, Russell (Inverness)
Parry, Robert (Liverpool, Exchange)
Wilson Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)


Jones, Gwynoro (Carmarthen)
Pavitt, Laurie
Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)


Jones, Barry (Flint, East)
Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred
Woof, Robert


Jones, T. Alec (Rhondda, West)
Pendry, Tom



Judd, Frank
Pentland, Norman
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Kaufman, Gerald
Perry, Ernest G.
Mr. John Golding and


Kerr, Russell
Prentice, Rt. Hn. Reg.
Mr. William Hamling.


Kinnock, Neil
Prescott, John





NOES


Adley, Robert
Boscawen, R. T.
Churchill, W. S.


Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)
Bossom, Sir Clive
Clark, William (Surrey, East)


Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)
Bowden, Andrew
Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe)


Archer, Jeffrey (Louth)
Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. John
Clegg, Walter


Astor, John
Braine, Bernard
Cockeram, Eric


Atkins, Humphrey
Bray, Ronald
Cooke, Robert


Awdry, Daniel
Brewis, John
Cooper, A. E.


Baker, Kenneth (St. Marylebone)
Brocklebank-Fowler, Christopher
Cordle, John


Baker, W. H. K. (Banff)
Bruce-Gardyne, J.
Cormack, Patrick


Balniel, Lord
Bryan, Paul
Critchley, Julian


Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton
Buchanan-Smith, Alick (Angus, N &amp; M)
Crouch, David


Bell, Ronald
Bullus, Sir Eric
Curran, Charles


Bennett, Sir Frederic (Torquay)
Butler, Adam (Bosworth)
Dalkeith, Earl of


Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gosport)
Campbell, Rt. Hn. G. (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Dance, James


Benyon, W.
Carlisle, Mark
Davies, Rt. Hn. John (Knutsford)


Berry, Hn. Anthony
Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry


Biffen, John
Cary, Sir Robert
d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Maj.-Gen. Jack


Biggs-Davison, John
Channon, Paul
Dean, Paul


Blaker, Peter
Chapman, Sydney
Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.


Boardman, Tom (Leicester, S. W.)
Chataway, Rt. Hn. Christopher
Digby, Simon Wingfield


Body, Richard
Chichester-Clark, R.
Dixon, Piers







Dodds-Parker, Douglas
King, Tom (Bridgwater)
Reed, Laurence (Bolton, East)


du Cann, Rt. Hn. Edward
Kinsey, J. R.
Rees, Hn. Peter (Dover)


Dykes, Hugh
Kitson, Timothy
Rees-Davies, W. R.


Eden, Sir John
Knight, Mrs. Jill
Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon


Edwards, Nicholas (Pembroke)
Knox, David
Ridley, Hn. Nicholas


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Lane, David
Ridsdale, Julian


Elliott, R. W. (N'c'tle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Roberts, Michael (Cardiff, North)


Emery, Peter
Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry
Roberts, Wyn (Conway)


Eyre, Reginald
Le Marchant, Spencer
Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)


Fell, Anthony
Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)
Rossi, Hugh (Hornsey)


Fenner, Mrs. Peggy
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'n C'dfield)
Rost, Peter


Fidler, Michael
Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)
Royle, Anthony


Finsberg, Geoffrey (Hampstead)
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)
St. John-Stevas, Norman


Fisher, Nigel (Surbiton)
Loveridge, John
Sandys, Rt. Hn. D.


Fookes, Miss Janet
MacArthur, Ian
Scott, Nicholas


Fowler, Norman
McCrindle, R. A.
Scott-Hopkins, James


Fox, Marcus
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy
Sharples, Richard


Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford &amp; Stone)
McMaster, Stanley
Shaw, Michael (S'b'gh &amp; Whitby)


Gardner, Edward
Macmillan, Maurice (Farnham)
Shelton, William (Clapham)


Gibson-Watt, David
McNair-Wilson, Michael
Simeons, Charles


Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, C.)
McNair-Wilson, Patrick (NewForest)
Sinclair, Sir George


Gilmour, Sir John (Fife, E.)
Madel, David
Skeet, T. H. H.


Glyn, Dr. Alan
Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest
Smith, Dudley (W'wick &amp; L'mington)


Godber, Rt. Hn. J. B.
Marten, Neil
Soref, Harold


Goodhart, Philip
Mather, Carol
Spence, John


Goodhew, Victor
Maude, Angus
Sproat, Iain


Gorst, John
Mawby, Ray
Stainton, Keith


Gower, Raymond
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Stanbrook, Ivor


Gray, Hamish
Meyer, Sir Anthony
Stewart-Smith, D. G. (Belper)


Green, Alan
Mills, Peter (Torrington)
Stodart, Anthony (Edinburgh, W.)


Grieve, Percy
Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir M.


Griffiths, Eldon (Bury St. Edmunds)
Miscampbell, Norman
Stokes, John


Grylls, Michael
Mitchell, Lt.-Col. C. (Aberdeenshire, W)
Sutcliffe, John


Gummer, Selwyn
Mitchell, David (Basingstoke)
Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)


Gurden, Harold
Moate, Roger
Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)


Hall, Miss Joan (Keighley)
Molyneaux, James
Taylor, Robert (Croydon, N. W.)


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Money, Ernle
Tebbit, Norman


Hall-Davis, A. G. F.
Monks, Mrs. Connie
Temple, John M.


Hannam, John (Exeter)
Monro, Hector
Thatcher, Rt. Hn. Mrs. Margaret


Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
More, Jasper
Thomas, John Stradling (Monmouth)


Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Morgan, Geraint (Denbigh)
Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)


Haselhurst, Alan
Morgan-Giles, Rear-Adm.
Tilney, John


Hawkins, Paul
Morrison, Charles (Devizes)
Trafford, Dr. Anthony


Hay, John
Mudd, David
Trew, Peter


Hayhoe, Barney
Murton, Oscar
Tugendhat, Christopher


Hicks, Robert
Nabarro, Sir Gerald
Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.


Higgins, Terence L.
Neave, Airey
Vickers, Dame Joan


Hill, John E. B. (Norfolk, S.)
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Waddington, David


Hill, James (Southampton, Test)
Onslow, Cranley
Walder, David (Clitheroe)


Holland, Philip
Oppenheim, Mrs. Sally
Walker, Rt. Hn. Peter (Worcester)


Holt, Miss Mary
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek


Hordern, Peter
Osborn, John
Wall, Patrick


Howe, Hn. Sir Geoffrey (Reigate)
Owen, Idris (Stockport, North)
Walters, Dennis


Howell, David (Guildford)
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Ward, Dame Irene


Howell, Ralph (Norfolk, North)
Page, John (Harrow, W.)
Warren, Kenneth


Hunt, John
Parkinson, Cecil (Enfield, W.)
Weatherill, Bernard


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Peel, John
White, Roger (Gravesend)


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Percival, Ian
Whitelaw, Rt. Hn. William


James, David
Peyton, Rt. Hn. John
Wiggin, Jerry


Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)
Pike Miss Mervyn
Wilkinson, John


Jennings, J. C. (Burton)
Pink, R. Bonner
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Jessel, Toby
Pounder, Rafton
Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard


Johnson Smith, G. (E. Grinstead)
Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch
Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher


Jones, Arthur (Northants, South)
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Woodnutt, Mark


Jopling, Michael
Prior, Rt. Hn. J. M. L.
Worsley, Marcus


Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith
Proudfoot, Wilfred
Wylie, Rt. Hn. N. R.


Kaberry, Sir Donald
Pym, Rt. Hn. Francis
Younger, Hn. George


Kellett, Mrs. Elaine
Quennell, Miss J. M.



Kerby, Capt. Henry
Raison, Timothy
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Kilfedder, James
Rawlinson, Rt. Hn. Sir Peter
Mr. Tim Fortescue and


King, Evelyn (Dorset, South)
Redmond, Robert
Mr. Keith Speed.

FAMILY INCOME SUPPLEMENTS BILL

As amended, considered.

6.49 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: As is my custom, I have posted details of the selection of Amendments. We come first to new Clause No. 1.

New Clause 1

PUBLICATION OF HANDBOOK

(1) As soon as may be and in any event not later than three months after the commencement of this Act there shall be published by Her Majesty's Stationery Office and made available upon purchase a Family Income Supplements Handbook for the purpose of giving general guidance upon the provisions of this Act and any Regulations made thereunder and such other matters as may be relevant thereto.
(2) Further editions of the said Handbook shall be published as and when the Secretary of State shall consider it necessary.—[Mrs. Shirley Williams.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
I am not sure whether debate on this Clause will take very long, since I have a feeling that the Government may be in a conceding sort of mood. Perhaps I may indicate the purpose of the Clause and then ask the Under-Secretary of State a few questions.
The purpose of the Clause is to do for the new Family Income Supplement Scheme what was done previously by the Labour Government in respect of the Supplementary Benefits Scheme. We want to ensure that the regulations by which the scheme will be bound are made as explicit as possible. We want to be clear about any discretion that rests with the Secretary of State in this case and the Supplementary Benefits Commission in the other case. We want to be clear about the definitions, and to have simple explanations of what those definitions mean. We want the disregards simply expressed where they exist—and I am glad that they do—giving applicants rights of appeal, the right to be represented and so forth.
We put particular emphasis on the new Clause for two reasons. First, even though the Bill has now been somewhat

improved by Amendments and by answers to questions by the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend, it is by no means simple. The hon. Gentleman believes that it will be simple to administer, but it will not be simple to understand, which is a different matter. The hon. Gentleman has recognised throughout our debates on the Bill that the question of take-up is crucial to his argument and that of his right hon. Friend. It is therefore in pursuit of both a high take-up and, just as important, the rights of applicants—who, in many cases, will have few resources of their own—that we urge the Parliamentary Secretary to look favourably upon the Clause.
The point about the handbook is that, rather like the supplementary benefit handbook, it must give guidance to organisations which might be willing to represent applicants. As for the applicant, we would not regard it as adequate for example, if the hon. Gentleman were to say, as he did in answer to a written Question, that he would produce a simple guide in plain English. We appreciate the need for a simple guide in plain English which explains as clearly as possible what the Bill comprehends and who it is to assist. But a more detailed handbook, of the kind we have had from the Supplementary Benefits Commission, will give guidance to those who are willing to represent applicants in some cases, and applicants themselves in others. I urge the hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend to give this careful consideration, because the Bill will be more successful from their point of view if they can show that it is operating generously with as little difference as possible between one family and another, and that it is a Bill which gives the greatest possible rights to the applicant.
We on this side are still extremely worried about the balance of proof between the applicant and the Secretary of State. We are still concerned about what we regard to be a balance which much too heavily favours the Secretary of State against the applicant. If the applicant is to move relatively naked against the power of the State it is all the more important that those who are willing to assist him should have the fullest possible information about the way the scheme works.
The second part of the Clause refers to further editions of the handbook. The Secretary of State has now indicated that there will be certain disregards immediately. He has also said that at a future date he may be willing to consider other disregards. This would imply that any additions to that handbook might become out of date relatively rapidly. We suggest that the handbook be brought up to date if there is any substantial change in the Act.
Finally, the Government appreciate that throughout their dealings with the Opposition on the Bill, they have in effect expected us to show a degree of trust which perhaps does not invariably exist between Government and Opposition. The Government have done this by pledging themselves, in long answers to questions, during statements, in debates, in letters, and so forth. But the Government must recognise that the Opposition regard their job as guaranteeing these pledges. That is what the Report stage is all about. This is an attempt by the Opposition to ask the Government to guarantee to stake their good word by writing these pledges into the Bill. The Clause is the first of those taking up the Government on their pledges and insisting that they ought to be changed into law so that they can be properly supervised by Parliament.
I commend the Clause in that spirit, recognising at least in part that the hon. Gentleman has already conceded the point in answer to an earlier question from one of his hon. Friends.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): I much appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Lady the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) has moved the New Clause. We fully concede that the Bill has been improved in Committee, and we are grateful to the Opposition for the valuable contributions they have made.
I am sure there is no disagreement between the two sides of the House as to the spirit behind the new Clause. We have emphasised constantly that we wish to provide the fullest possible information through all the appropriate channels, because that is the way to ensure the maximum take-up, which is essential for the success of the scheme. We desire not only the maximum take-up of family

income supplement but also that this should be regarded as a passport to other benefits to which so many of the F.I.S. families will be eligible but may not now be receiving fully.
There is no disagreement as to the need, the intention or the desirability of providing the maximum information possible. That goes also for those people on whom we shall be relying considerably, including hon. Members, to see that we establish contact with those who will be eligible for the benefit. They include local authority workers, voluntary workers, and a series of people who will clearly need simple information in the most appropriate form so that they can advise people who may well be eligible.
The same applies to the point mentioned by the hon. Lady about the applicant being naked against the power of the State. That is certainly not our intention. We have stressed all the way through our debates on the Bill that we wish to keep it as simple as possible and have the minimum number of questions asked and answered, so that we will not create barriers between the power of the State and the individuals who will benefit. Thus far we are in entire agreement. But it would not be appropriate at this juncture to tie the Government down in the way proposed by the Clause. There are one or two difficulties in the method which the Clause suggests for carrying out the aim which we share. The Clause states that there should be a statutory requirement to publish a handbook within three months of Royal Assent. I submit that it is not possible at this stage to enter into a commitment in this precise form and so short a time after the Bill receives Royal Assent. Experience of the scheme will be required. Anything that could be properly described as a handbook can be produced shortly after all the regulations under the Bill have been produced, some of them on affirmative Resolutions requiring debates in the House. All these regulations will need to be explained to those concerned. I hope that the House will accept that tying down the-Government to this precise form, and to this very short time from Royal Assent, is asking the impossible.
We are considering carefully the most appropriate form. It may well be that in the early stages of the major take-up campaign which will be launched next


year, we shall need a different media of communication from that required once the scheme is launched. To begin with, we propose to use all the appropriate means of communication available to obtain the maximum take-up, including newspaper advertising, contacts with local authority workers and voluntary bodies, and the like. It could be that the methods which have been used by the Department whereby simple leaflets dealing with the scheme in general and with various aspects of it will be the most appropriate form in the early stages.
7.0 p.m.
I am not ruling out the hon. Lady's suggestion. When we have experience of the scheme, when regulations have been formed and we have the scheme in operation, it may be that the most convenient form will be to put the guidance in a handbook similar to the Supplementary Benefit handbook. But, before the scheme is even launched and the regulations are made, it would be a mistake to tie us down to the precise form in which this information should be made available.
I hope, therefore, that the hon. Lady will feel that there is no difference between the two sides about the intention of giving the maximum information. However, at this stage we do not wish to be tied down to a procedure which would be far too tight in terms of the timetable and may not turn out to be the best way of achieving the aim shared by both sides of the House.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, may I ask him two questions? If we accept that the three-month period is too short, will the hon. Gentleman agree that at the earliest convenient date when enough information about the working of the scheme is available a handbook similar to the supplementary benefit handbook will be produced? Secondly, will the hon. Gentleman also agree that in the early months of the working of the scheme, which will be the most crucial since they will establish case law where there is none at the moment, he will agree to make available to organisations such as trade unions and bodies like the Child Poverty Action Group the fullest details about the way in which the scheme is being operated? Without that, such organisations are only

half effective, as the hon. Gentleman must know.

Mr. Dean: I take the hon. Lady's two points, and I readily assure her that we will do that.

Mrs. Williams: In both cases?

Mr. Dean: Yes, in both cases. But I am not anxious to be tied down to the precise way in which it should be done. We may learn from experience ways which are more suitable than those that the hon. Lady suggests. But I gladly give her assurances on the two questions that she has asked.

Question put and negatived.

New Clause 2

SECRETARY OF STATE'S REPORT

The Secretary of State shall as respects each year lay before Parliament a report on the manner and extent to which the rights, powers and duties provided for by this Act have been exercised, in particular relating to the numbers eligible, the number who apply, and the number who receive, family incomes supplement, and on such related matters as he shall consider expedient.—[Mr. Brian O'Malley.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

Mr. Brian O'Malley: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
The House will recall that, in Committee, we on this side moved a new Clause which sought to set up a family income supplementary advisory committee. The functions of the proposed committee were that it should act as a consultative body and be required to report yearly to Parliament on the operations of the Act.
The new Clause that we moved in Committee reflected our concern on the question of take-up. We wanted information estimating the number of families which, during the first year of operation of the Act, were entitled to F.I.S. benefit and whether such families had received such benefit.
The Secretary of State assured hon. Members both on Second Reading and in Committee that a vigorous take-up campaign would be carried out by his Department. We welcomed those assurances. However, our new Clause was rejected by the right hon. Gentleman on


two grounds. The first was that the Department was already under pressure to bring the Act into operation as from 1st August of next year and there would not be time to refer many questions to the kind of body that we proposed. The second was that, in any case, he did not want to set up another advisory body because no one knew how permanent this form of family income supplement would be. I will return to that point later—

Mr. Speaker: Order. With respect, that Amendment was defeated. That debate is over. The hon. Gentleman must come to this new Clause.

Mr. O'Malley: Of course, Mr. Speaker. I was seeking merely to explain briefly the background against which we move this new Clause.
The right hon. Gentleman assured us that he was anxious to give all the information that he could. This Clause is one method of obtaining such information from the Administration. The right hon. Gentleman envisaged a situation where information could be extracted by means of Parliamentary Questions and statements in the House. He went on to say that it could be obtained by any other mechanism which seems appropriate. We on this side of the House feel that it would be inadequate if the information could only be got by means of Parliamentary Questions and statements.
It is the case already that the Department of Health and Social Security issues an annual report. It is also the case that there is a separate report on war pensioners. Those reports provide valuable information on the work carried out by the Department at the moment and, therefore, one would assume that the right hon. Gentleman would point out in replying to this debate that, since the F.I.S. scheme was part of the operations of his Department, obviously in future there would be a section on it in the Department's annual reports.
The Department's annual report provides up to date information, for example, on current rates, and it examines trends in applications for sickness benefit. A section dealing with the Supplementary Benefits Commission gives us a vast amount of valuable information on

claims, on the break up of claims, their length, and so on. It tells us the number of people in receipt of supplementary benefit, but it does not say the number of people entitled to it and the proportion who do not get it.
We hope to see substantially more information laid before Parliament than it appears that we are likely to get if the present practice is followed and we have merely a section in the annual report dealing with the F.I.S. scheme. The kind of information that we seek goes beyond the type that we receive at the moment in the Department's annual report.
On Second Reading and in Committee, a number of hon. Members on both sides expressed serious doubts and worries about the long term effects of subsidising wages. The Speenhamland system was called in evidence by a number of hon. Members on Second Reading. When any report on the workings of the F.I.S. scheme is published, the Government are bound to take note of the concern expressed in the House at that time, and we hope that a good deal of information will be contained in a report of the kind that we envisage in this Clause.
Secondly, we would want as much information as the Government had about take-up.
Thirdly, we would like information about the effects on the entitlement of individual families as the result of the operation or the non-operation of the system of disregards, on the one hand, and the existing £3 cut-off, on the other.
During previous stages of the Bill, it was suggested that, as drafted, the Act would act as a serious disincentive on women in a household taking part-time work of any kind. We would want to know whether this view had proven correct in the operation of the Act.
Looking at the difficulties into which the Government have run in deciding what what the period of assessment should be and how that period should be varied according to different categories of applicants, we would want to know how that was working. We understand that at the moment capital will not be taken into account. I think that the Secretary of State mentioned this in Committee. However, we would want some information on this subject


We would want information on the operation of the family income supplement scheme concerning special categories of persons. I will explain what I mean. I asked the Secretary of State to comment, on, for example, the actor, who does not work a 30-hour week and may have an income varying from one month to another. We ought to be able to expect that kind of information in any future reports from the Government, and certainly in reports envisaged by the new Clause.
Lastly, I come to the proposition put forward by the Secretary of State in Committee when he said that we did not know how permanent this scheme would be. It would be useful to the House if in future in any published report the Government could give their thinking on how the economy had moved and how they saw the problem of this category of families with which the Bill deals in the light of changing circumstances.
It is for these reasons that we propose the new Clause. We do not feel that merely another section in the annual report of the Department would be adequate unless the Minister can assure us that it would be a very much fuller report dealing with the kind of issues which I have been describing. We strongly believe that the Government should accept the new Clause, which is designed to be helpful in future years, so that Parliament can carry out its rôle properly and see whether some of the doubts and reservations raised by hon. Members have proven true and how the major difficulties envisaged by hon. Members have been worked out or ironed out of the system as the result of its operation in the early years.

7.15 p.m.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: I should be willing to accept an assurance from the Minister that the information will be included in the annual report of the Department. This is a technicality. I should be content, provided we got the information. There is no difference on this side of the House.
One of the most pleasing things in the House is to refer to one's own speeches. That is what I want to do on this aspect of information. Dealing with the low wage earner, can we not get

some kind of assurance in line with what my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) has suggested? Apart from the distinct social categories which will be helped by the Bill—the unmarried mother, the separated wife, or some of the sections of the community which have peculiar social problems over and above the fact of being low wage earners—can we isolate the low wage earner in full-time employment and provide information about the employers?
I do not want to set up a witch hunt. We are not trying to find whether Joe Bloggs in the main street is the worst employer in the city. I am speaking in general terms, because there was some confusion between wage rates and earnings. This point was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth). It seems that wage rates can tell us some things and earnings can tell us other factors. Is there any common feature which would enable us to identify the low paid full-time wage earners? This is a relevant point which must be kept in mind in the light of what has been said about it being hoped that this is a temporary scheme for the low wage earner.
Is there any objection by the Supplementary Benefits Commission? This seems to be a departmental scheme, "departmental" meaning a D.H.S.S. scheme, being operated to some extent presumably by the Supplementary Benefits Commission. Is there any technical or real difficulty? Presumably, it would further identify the S.B.C. with this scheme. I take it that that is the department which would produce the statistics and information for the report.
I want now to refer to the Minister's speech on 18th November at column 1382. I am not doubting the Minister's genuine intention to give the House information, but it is not good enough to say that we can get all the information we want
By Parliamentary Question, by statement".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1382.]
I am sure that the Minister appreciates this. If there are any technical difficulties or departmental considerations which are not obvious to me, I should accept the Minister's assurance, provided we are assured that there will be some kind of annual report and that we can


argue about what might or might not be in it in future. Of course, there must be something in it which would enable us to get information. For instance, we would surely want to include rents. This is the kind of information which is available in the S.B.C. annual report relating to the level of rent allowances which are being paid. These are relevant factors, and I hope that the Minister can assure us that there will be an annual report of some kind.

Mr. Dean: I think that this, too, has been a helpful debate. We shall certainly take very careful note of the points raised by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) and the helpful points mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown), who has long and intimate knowledge of the working of our social security schemes.
Both hon. Gentlemen referred to what my right hon. Friend said at an earlier stage. My right hon. Friend certainly mentioned the possibility of soliciting information through Questions in this House and by statements; but he also went on to say that these are just two of many other methods by which information can be made available. My right hon. Friend spoke, for example, about
any other mechanism which seems appropriate".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1382.]
The hon. Gentlemen have taken the first two words of my right hon. Friend's answer without realising that he also dwelt on other possible methods of making information available.
We firmly intend, as I mentioned in an earlier debate, making as much information available as possible. There is no intention of being coy or shy about the scheme. The more light that can be thrown upon it, the more effective this first step will be in dealing with family poverty amongst these low wage earners. All the points that have been made will be valuable in our study to decide the most convenient form in which we can make the information available to the House.

Mr. O'Malley: I have raised a number of items which I think should be included, but there is one matter of particular importance, and that is the ques-

tin. of take-up. Can the Minister, even at this stage, give us an assurance that any report will contain that kind of information?

Mr. Dean: I shall try to deal with all the very fair points raised by the hon. Gentleman.
I am glad the hon. Gentleman recognises that the Department provides a great deal of information about the working of our social security arrangements by means of annual reports. It is significant that these annual reports are provided, not because of a statutory obligation, but because it is considered that this is a convenient mechanism for making available information about the workings of these schemes. These reports have been provided for a number of years, even though there is no statutory obligation to provide them, and I hope the House will feel that the very fact that the Department has of its own free will regarded it as in the interests of the country as well as in the interests of the Department to make this information available in substantial annual reports suggests strongly that it is probably better to leave it this way than to try to make this a statutory obligation.
I now come to what has been said about the kind of things that should be in this report. The hon. Member for Provan said that he would be satisfied with a separate section in the annual report, and I was glad to have his support on that. Our present thinking is that this would probably be the most suitable and convenient form in which to make this information available to the House and to the country, but I am not saying that that will definitely be the case.
The hon. Gentleman said that one of the things that we want to try to discover is whether there are any common features amongst these low wage earners, the people who are in full time work but whose earnings are below the supplementary benefit level. We hope very much that as the result of the information that we gain about this scheme, and as a result of the information which the Supplementary Benefits Commission has about its clients, we might discover some common factors. At the moment we know very little about this. We hope that this is one of the things that will come out.
I suspect—but I am not speaking from very much knowledge—that we shall find that there are very few common features, that we are dealing with a whole range of human problems. We may find that the number of common features is very few, but at the moment this is speculation. We shall look to see whether there are common features which perhaps can be solved by one or a number of methods.
I now deal with the point raised by the hon. Member for Rotherham about the numbers eligible. The questions that he asked fall broadly into two categories. First, we have to speculate or assess the percentage of people who might be eligible who are getting the benefits of the scheme. The other is the hard facts about the number of people who are getting the benefits, the level of benefits they are getting, the type of people they are, whether they are one-child families, two parent families, and so on. I think the hon. Gentleman will accept that the first type of information is to some extent speculative, whereas the second is really a report on the scheme and the workings of it.
With regard to the numbers eligible, and therefore the take-up, I think the hon. Gentleman will recognise, as I am sure the House will, that on that issue, in the same way as we were when we were dealing with supplementary benefits, we are dealing with questions which must to some extent be speculative. We have information from the Family Expenditure Survey. We have information from various surveys which are taken from time to time to try to establish people who might be eligible to benefit if they knew about the benefits, or if we knew about the people.
We shall endeavour, in every way we possibly can, to assess the number of people who are eligible, but I think the House will recognise that this is a very much more difficult operation, because of the speculation involved, than reporting on the actual workings of the scheme. I assure the hon. Gentleman that the points that he has made about eligibility and take-up are clearly relevant so that the House and the country can judge the success of the scheme. We shall use our best endeavours to make available as much information as we possibly can.
The other points made by the hon. Gentleman fall more into the second category. They concern the hard facts about the scheme, and this information will be much easier to provide. It is the sort of information which appears year by year in the annual reports.
I hope the House will feel that here, as with the debate that we have just concluded, the Government's intentions are exactly those which have been expressed by the two hon. Gentlemen who have taken part in the debate. It is our intention to make information available in the most suitable form. Our present thinking is that a separate section in the annual report may be the most suitable form, and we do not feel—and I think the House will agree with us—that it would be appropriate for us to be tied down to the precise wording of the new Clause.

Mr. O'Malley: The Minister has been most helpful, and I think that he has met me almost all the way. There is only one matter on which I should like him to comment, the Speenhamland argument. Will this be a charter for bad employers? Does not the hon. Gentleman think that the early reports, whether in the larger annual report or not, ought to examine this proposition, in view of what has been said in the House, and offer some advice and conclusion on whether the fears that have been expressed have been realised?

Mr. Dean: If it is possible to do so, certainly, but I think the hon. Gentleman will recognise that there must be an element of speculation. We do not feel that the fears which have been expressed about Speenhamland will be realised in practice. We are dealing with a comparatively small number of people, the poorest of the poor who are in full-time work, quite a large percentage of them one child families. We think it highly unlikely that a scheme of this kind will have the effect of depressing wages, but the fears which have been expressed will be watched carefully by the Government. We are moving into an uncharted scheme, and nobody can be dogmatic about the effects of it. I hope the hon. Gentleman will feel that that is an adequate assurance.

Question put and negatived.

Clause 1

FAMILY INCOME SUPPLEMENT

7.30 p.m.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 15, at end insert:
'( ) For the purposes of this Act a household may consist of one or more families and a family may consist of some only of the members of a household'.
The debates so far have shown that it is the common desire of both sides of the House that when the Bill becomes an Act it shall be as clear as possible to those who are intended to benefit from it, to those who will be operating it, and also, as the Minister said, to Members of Parliament who will be advising their constituents about the possibility of a claim by them. It is not sufficient that there should be handbooks, or that information should be given to Parliament. The first essential is that the Act should be as clear and as simple as it possibly can be. The debates in Committee show that there is little about the Bill that is clear and simple. On the contrary, its complexities are only too manifest.
Clause 1 tells us that a family consists of certain specified members of a household. So already we have two expressions, the meanings of which we have to interpret—"family" and "household". What is more important, those who administer the Measure and those who are intended to gain benefit from it will have to understand what those expressions mean in the context of the Bill. Since, according to the Bill, a "family" is something that falls within a "household", these people will obviously want to know, first, what is a household. On that, the Bill does not enlighten them—nor, as far as I can see, is there power to prescribe its meaning in regulations.
We have not put down an Amendment on that point, but the Government might consider it, because where a house is in multi-occupation—there may be a number of households which are interrelated with a married daughter and her family living upstairs and the parents downstairs—it will be necessary to know whether they constitute one household

or two. That is the first puzzle which those seeking to discover what the Bill means will have to solve.

The Secretary of State for Social Services (Sir Keith Joseph): I know that the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) will not try to create difficulties. Perhaps I can help him by saying that a number of different families may live under a single roof. Those families may be interrelated, but they can still be separate families for the purpose of each receiving F.I.S. if they qualify, provided only that each such separate family has an earning parent in full-time work or an earning adult in full-time work, with children for whose requirements that earning adult is responsible.

Mr. Silkin: I am sure that any of my constituents who read the report of this debate and what the right hon. Gentleman has just said will be quite clear in their minds exactly what Clause 1 means. Unfortunately, they will not all do so. The right hon. Gentleman has come to the point of our Amendment. I have been anticipating that a little by talking about the meaning of the word "household", but the Clause is concerned with what is meant by "family", and the Minister has pointed out that the Bill intends it to mean something different from "household". That is obvious because of the use of the two different expressions.
From the debates that we had in Committee it is also clear that it is something entirely different from what the ordinary person understands by the term "family". When we explored these matters in Committee we discovered all kinds of situations in which "family", for the purposes of the Bill, will differ from what you, Mr. Speaker, or I would consider to be a family.
We accept the right hon. Gentleman's explanation that this will enlarge the benefits flowing from the Measure, rather than narrow them. It will do so because in the household there may be two or more families, as defined in the Bill, or there may be one family as so defined, together with other people who would normally be regarded in ordinary parlance as members of the family but who, for the purposes of other benefits of F.I.S. will not be regarded as members of


the F.I.S. family. All that was explained in Committee.
A man may be providing for children and so constituting a family, but in addition there may be a woman who is not cohabiting with him—his mother, sister, or aunt, for example—who may be entitled to supplementary benefit in her own right. Again, that other woman—and I do not use the term in any narrow sense—may herself be providing for children and may herself be in full-time employment, as that term will be defined in the regulations, and therefore qualify for F.I.S. in her own right, or may not be, but may qualify for other benefits for herself and the children for whom she is providing.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to some of these possibilities in Committee. Having dealt with them he said:
To clear up any doubt, if we contemplate a household in which a Nan has children of her own and joins up her household with that of the father of the children, we might well get a situation in which the same household contained two families, each entitled on its own to family income supplement.
He went on to say:
Now we come to the much harder cases. I have only covered the easy ones."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1126–7.]
If those are the easy cases, Heaven help us to understand the difficult ones.
In practice, the most difficult cases of all will surely be those where, within the household, we have adults and children and the money earned is pooled, so that it is extremely difficult to say who and who is not providing for the children. The Bill does not seem to require the child or children being provided for under Clause 1 to be the child or children of any of the people referred to in that Clause. It is sufficient that they are being provided for by one of those persons. That is enough to qualify them, whether it is full or partial provision. We have not put down an Amendment on that point, but perhops the right hon. Gentleman will consider whether the word "either" in line 14 should be replaced by the word "any".

Mr. Speaker: Order. We are dealing with a very complex subject. We cannot discuss an Amendment that is not to be moved.

Mr. Silkin: I shall try to avoid that, Mr. Speaker. We are trying to help the right hon. Gentleman to make the Bill meaningful. At any rate, it follows that family income supplement will be payable, although someone not in the family, as defined, is providing for part of the requirement of the child or children concerned.
Thus, the first question which must be answered before we reach the question of the right to or amount of family income supplement, is: to which family in a household do the children belong? For the purposes of what I might call the "artificial family", do they belong to more than one family in the household? I referred to this question in Committee and suggested that the right hon. Gentleman might reconsider the wording of the Clause. It seems that he is satisfied with it, but to us it remains obscure. The question as to who decides what is the family is not made clear by the Bill, so far as I understand it. The question of what the family consists of is not made clear.
The Amendment seeks to write into the Bill that which, as the right hon. Gentleman made quite clear in the course of our debates in Committee, is intended by the Bill and which he may well say is implicit in it—that is, no matter what the household may be, it may contain one or more families within it. It follows that those families may have separate rights either under the Bill or under other legislation.
Our view is that, where there are these artificial conceptions and terms which mean something different from what the ordinary man takes them to mean, it is much better for the Bill to make quite explicit what is at present merely implicit. Many of us when we first read the Bill did not appreciate the subtle distinction which enables a grandparent, for example, living with her married son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren to be regarded as a family separate and distinct from the other members of what would normally be regarded as his or her family. We welcome the intention that she should be so regarded, because it means that she will be separately entitled to benefits. If that is the intention, as we understand it to be, we think it right to make it as clear as possible to those who will be


administering the Bill when enacted and those who will benefit from it. That is the purpose of the Amendment.
If we are told by the right hon. Gentleman that the Amendment simply states the obvious, I can reply by saying that it certainly was not obvious to many of us until we had had prolonged debates on the Clause in Committee and it will not be obvious to many people, including hon. Members seeking to advise their constituents on the matter. Such hon. Members will not have the debates before them and they will certainly not have the right hon. Gentleman's recent intervention before them when they try to advise their constituents who come to them for help.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. Kevin McNamara: I want to raise again a matter which I raised in Committee—c. 241–2, 18th November. By that time the Under-Secretary had spoken, but I think that he listened sympathetically to what I said. I hope that we can get a clearer answer if I raise the matter again.
The problem arises on the definition of "household". Let us assume that there are two families living in a council tenancy one or both of whom are in receipt of family income supplement and that the council operates a rent rebate scheme or a differential rent scheme. What happens to the rent that has to be paid, as a result of the increase in income due to family income supplement? Will they have to pay more rent because of F.I.S. or will it remain the same?
I have here an explanation of the rent rebate scheme issued by the City and County of Kingston upon Hull as a guide to tenants. In answer to the questions, "Who is entitled to a rent rebate?" it states in the relevant part of the answer:
A rent rebate will not normally be made if:

(a) as well as the tenant and his wife, there is at least one other member of the household (the tenant's family living in the house) over 21 with his/her own income—for example, a working son or daughter or a retired parent with a pension.
(b) more than one household live in the dwelling. Even in these two cases a rebate will be given if there are special circumstances."


It then refers to Answer 4 as to what are special circumstances. It says in reply to Question No. 4:
The rent rebate scheme cannot cover every situation. The Council, however, does not wish any tenant to pay more than he can reasonably afford.
What the Tory-controlled Hull Council thinks is reasonable most hon. Members on this side would disagree with. I continue reading:
If you do not qualify for a rent rebate under the scheme but cannot really afford to pay the standard rent ask at the Housing Department or your local estate office if you are entitled to special consideration.
For example, a family with a low income and a retired parent living with them, or a low income tenant with a son over 21 but also on a low wage are likely to qualify for special consideration.
One would hope that this would be interpreted to mean a family or group of families in receipt of income under the family income supplement scheme.
When the Secretary of State issues regulations on the definition of "household", does he intend to refer specifically to the situation which I have just outlined? Does the increase in income because of family income supplement mean that a council can demand more in rent? What happens if there are two or more families within the same dwelling in receipt of family income supplement? Will the Secretary of State give an undertaking to advise the Secretary of State for the Environment to inform local authorities that where there is an increase in family income or families' income due to the family income supplement, such an increase should be disregarded for the purpose of rent?
This is an important problem which will arise where there are two or more families in receipt of F.I.S. within one household according to the interpretation under the Bill, but it can obviously arise where there is only one family. It needs clarification. When we have discussed the question of rents hitherto this point has not been belaboured to the extent that it deserved.

Sir K. Joseph: I came to this Bill with something like a passion for short sentences. I find that I am constantly needing qualifications and that my sentences grow longer and longer. Hon. Members, particularly hon. Members opposite, are enjoying themselves constructively and


helpfully in postulating cases which they present as very complicated. We are likely to be dealing with a large proportion of numbers eligible who are in perfectly straightforward understandable family units.
The Amendment is unnecessary because its purpose is already covered by the Bill as drafted. F.I.S. may well be payable to two or more families living in the same household and under the same roof. The entire purpose of the Amendment, therefore, is met.
An F.I.S. family, for the purposes of the Bill, may consist of the following: a man in full-time work, with his wife or a woman living with him as his wife, and any children, whatever the relationship—and even if there be no relationship—whose requirements they are meeting; a woman in full-time work, not living as a wife, together with children whose requirements she is meeting; or a man in full-time work, on his own, and any children whose requirements he is meeting.
It is conceivable that there may be two or more such family units dwelling under the same roof, in sub-divisions of the house or even not in sub-divisions of the house. There may well be what appears to us as laymen to be a confusion of families.
It will be for the families concerned, with the advice of my Department, to divide themselves into F.I.S. families if there is more than one potentially F.I.S. family among them. It will be possible, also, for that group of people, where there are two separate adults not living together as man and wife, each potentially looking after the requirements of a child or children, to decide between themselves which full-time earning adult should qualify for F.I.S. and which should not. The result of the agreement among themselves will be to exclude from the assessable income the earnings or income of the adult who is deliberately left out of the F.I.S. household. We shall seek to make it as beneficial as possible to the people on very low earnings.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara)—who already has, so to speak, the scalp of the foster-child to his credit, having persuaded the Government to cover the position of the foster-child in regulations

—is to be congratulated on dragging into this debate, on the hypothesis of two families living under one rent-paying roof, the problem of the rent allowance. He asked me whether a rent rebate would be reduced as the income calculable for a rent rebate rose owing to payment of F.I.S. I think that he gave the right answer himself. Clearly, I must speak to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment to make sure that, when the Government's rent allowance scheme comes before the House, this particular possibility has been taken into account. In the meantime, local authorities retain their autonomy as regards rent rebates, and this is a matter for their discretion.

Mr. McNamara: I understand that local authorities will still have their autonomy until the new scheme is introduced. However, as the right hon. Gentleman's F.I.S. scheme is to come into operation next August, and as we cannot hope to see—indeed, some of us would probably prefer not to see—his right hon. Friend's scheme until next autumn, there exists a situation in which some local authorities are, and will be, operating a scheme based upon recommendations issued by the former Ministry of Housing and Local Government. I was trying to direct the right hon. Gentleman's attention to that problem. Might another directive be given?

Sir K. Joseph: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I undertake to speak to my right hon. Friend. If there is anything which could usefully be said, perhaps we might let it be known in another place.
I hope that I have reassured hon. Gentlemen opposite that their Amendment is tautologous. I know that the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) has penetrated the Bill remarkably and understands all that I have said. If there is a question which I have not covered, I gladly give way.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: The right hon. Gentleman has said, far more clearly than I could, precisely what I intended to say. But the yhole point is this: why not put just a few simple words into the


Bill so that those who read it will understand as clearly as he does after living with the Bill for the last few months and as I have come to understand it through listening to the right hon. Gentleman?

Sir K. Joseph: The hon. and learned Gentleman is most persuasive, but I cannot think that he imagines that many of those eligible for F.I.S. will read the Bill when it reaches statutory form, and nor are they likely, therefore, to miss what he calls the few simple words which he wishes to insert. It will be my task and pleasure to send out guidance to my offices, to the supplementary benefit offices, to the large number of social workers in all the many social work armies in the field, and to voluntary societies. I shall make it abundantly plain to them who are the potential F.I.S. recipients. I shall put it in language which will be sure to lead them to any potential recipient.
I assure the hon. and learned Gentleman that the addition of these words will in no way strengthen the power to help with F.I.S. more than one family in a household, and I hope that, on that assurance, he will not press the Amendment.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 3

AMOUNT OF FAMILY INCOME SUPPLEMENT

Mr. S. C. Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 2, line 4, after 'but', insert:
'save as in section 6(2) of this Act provided'.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I suggest that it will be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time the following two further Amendments:
Amendment No. 5, in page 2, line 10, at end insert:
'and may restrict or otherwise qualify the power in section 6(2) contained'.
Amendment No. 15, in Clause 6, page 2, line 39, at end insert:
(2) Where it appears to the Supplementary Benefits Commission that in the particular circumstances of any case it would be in the interests of the family as a whole that any member of the family capable of remunerative full-time work should not be engaged thereon,

it shall have power, subject to such conditions as it may think proper to impose, to determine as the amount of the family income supplement an amount higher than the maximum amount specified in section 3(1) of this Act or in any regulations which may have increased the said amount.

Mr. Silkin: The purpose of these Amendments is to deal with an important problem which was raised in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams). After complimenting the right hon. Gentleman for his helpfulness, which has been invariable, my hon. Friend put to him a certain hypothesis:
Let us take the case of a woman whose husband is, to some extent, mentally handicapped, and the only kind of work he can do is unskilled … full-time work. Let us take it that he could earn only £9 a week in his occupation and that the woman could earn £12 at a similar occupation. Because of the limitation of £3"—
that is, the maximum amount payable under the Bill—
if the family consisted of several children it might well be better off if the woman went out to work, earned £12 and was able to claim the full amount of £3—the whole amount to which she was entitled—rather than that the man should go out to work for £9 a week and so be able to claim £5 but, because of the limitation, would be entitled to only £3. There are tens of thousands of people who are to some extent mentally handicapped and limited in the jobs which they can do. A number are bound to be married to a woman who might be able to earn more.
The right hon. Gentleman was good enough to say:
I think I must take time to look at that example, and I will look at it."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1125–26.]
We have also looked at it and it appears that the case simply cannot be met so long as the £3 limit is maintained in all circumstances. Whether it should be maintained as a general rule at all is another question, argued at length in Committee. Clearly the higher the limit the fewer will be the special cases. If there were no limit, as many argued in Committee, then most if not all of the special cases would disappear. Conversely, the more the Government insist on having a limit the greater is the need for some way of dealing with special cases.
8.0 p.m.
The right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter)


accurately and concisely put his finger upon the point when he said:
But when one superimposes on that principle an arbitrary limit of a particular figure—and not a very high figure—of £3, one seems both to cast some doubts on the main principle of the Bill and, I believe—I shall be interested to hear what my hon. Friend says, of course—to inflict a considerable measure of particular hardship on certain categories."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1249.]
We entirely agree. The only real reply made to that in the course of the debates in Committee was given by the Under-Secretary when he said:
I was suggesting that there is a danger of abuse if there is no limit. I do not put it higher than that.
One of the things that could happen, for example, is collusion between a man and his employer."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1265.]
So we accept that we must guard against abuse and collusion. We have had those factors in mind in considering how an Amendment to the Bill could be drafted to meet the special case and at the same time avoid abuse. Of all the special cases, that which I am certain will appeal to the generosity of all hon. and right hon. Members is the case of the mother with young children. I hope and believe that all hon. Members will agree that financial considerations should not force the mother to go out to work where there are young children to look after. I am not speaking now of making "pin money", I am speaking of going out to work for the necessities of life.
We on this side feel this most strongly and I do not believe that we are alone. There are already far too many cases of this kind. If the House will bear with me for one moment I will give an instance from my own knowledge. It is a case concerning a family of husband, wife and two children. One child is aged 6 and goes to infant school and the other is aged 2. The husband, unhappily, is not a very reliable earner. To ensure that the children have the bare necessities of life the mother feels obliged to go out to work.
With a child aged 2 she cannot go out to work by day. What does she do? She waits until the 6-year-old child comes back from school and as soon as that child returns from school, off she goes to work, leaving the 6-year-old in

charge of the 2-year-old. In theory the husband is due to return home within the hour, but theory and practice do not always match up. That is the sort of situation where poverty bites deepest. Those children are losing their most priceless need, the company and loving care of a mother at the very time when they most need it. They may well become the problem children and the rebels against authority of the future.
This Amendment and those we are discussing with it are intended to avoid that sort of situation as far as it can be avoided under the Bill. I admit that they are necessarily technical in language, because this is a Bill full of complexities. They necessarily rely upon discretionary powers because the only way to avoid that would be to dispense altogether with the £3 limit and the Government are not prepared to do that. They would enable the Supplementary Benefits Commission to say to the mother, "So long as you leave the wage earning to your husband we will increase the limits to the sum that makes it unnecessary for you to go out to work." That is the sort of condition that we have in mind. It would be for the Supplementary Benefits Commission to decide what is in the whole family's best interests—those are the words we have written into the Amendment—and then to make the appropriate offer.
I emphasise the word "offer" because the Commission would not be telling the family what to do. The final decision would be for the family, as it should be. There would be no dictation, at least the family would be able to make a decision with the right sort of choice before it. It would give the operation of the Bill that little bit more flexibility. In Committee the Secretary of State was at pains to emphasise his desire to see in the Bill a flexible instrument to mitigate the ill-effects of poverty.
We are providing him with a further instrument with which to do this. Whatever we may think of the principle of the Bill, and we believe that it is inadequate to meet the problem of family poverty, we believe that it is our duty to try to improve it as much as we can. This Amendment is a step in that direction. It may be contended that regulations can cover that sort of case. Certainly the right hon. Gentleman is seeking to take


very wide powers to deal with the particular classes of cases by regulation. In doing so he is following an Amendment tabled by us in Committee. But this is essentially a human problem, a problem of the individual family.
We do not seek to restrict the power to make regulations. Indeed in our Amendment No. 5 we give express power to the right hon. Gentleman to circumscribe the discretion as he thinks proper. In the end we believe that a matter of discretion it must be in each case. Amendment No. 5 is intended to bring that discretion within reasonable limits. Amendment No. 15 the main Amendment we seek to move, we consider an essential part of the machinery for getting the best results from the Bill.
We doubt if it will be frequently invoked; we doubt if it will cost a very great deal—certainly far less than the gap between the £8 million the Bill is said to be likely to cost the taxpayer and the cost of providing the increased family allowances which the Conservative Party pledged itself to during the General Election. Therefore, I ask the Secretary of State to shake himself loose in this case from the shackles of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and give just a little more aid to some of the lame ducks of our society, and, what is more important, to the ducklings for whom they provide.

Mr. Dean: The hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin), with his usual ingenuity, has tried to meet the argument we put when a similar Amendment was debated in Committee. I am glad to see that he has conceded the point that there might be the possibility of abuse and collusion between the employer and his employee were there to be no limit in the scheme, and therefore he has tried to find another route, as it were, to deal with the sort of families he feels would benefit by having a higher limit than proposed—namely, by taking this discretionary power.
I want first to deal with the practical cases the hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned. He mentioned the case quoted by the hon. Lady the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) with regard to a man who is mentally subnormal and in full-time work. The cases he himself quoted were in similar categories. I suggest that it is this type of

family which would be more effectively helped through the supplementary benefits scheme. In the case of the man who is mentally subnormal, or at any rate is in a position where he is not fit and able to be the main breadwinner of the family and to be engaged in full-time work, that family would be better advised to work a shorter number of hours and to have the benefits of the supplementary benefits scheme rather than to become a F.I.S. family.

Mr. Silkin: The whole point of the example quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) was that, notwithstanding the limited capability of the man for earning capacity, he is in full-time remunerative occupation within the meaning of the Bill.

Mr. Dean: Yes, but it would probably be better from the point of view of the general welfare of that family were he in part-time work and receiving support through the Supplementary Benefits Commission arrangements rather than that it should be a F.I.S. family. That is the point I am making. There may well be instances of this character—indeed, there certainly will be—which are, as it were, on the borderline between supplementary benefit and F.I.S. and where advice will be required. I can quite envisage that sort of circumstance, particularly in such a case as that which the hon. Lady quoted—that of a mentally subnormal man who is in full-time work—where the appropriate advice would be to work a shorter number of hours, to be, in fact, in part-time work and to receive the benefit and support of the supplementary benefits scheme. This may well be the right answer in the case of such families.
I am fairly certain that there will be a number of cases in which this will be the correct approach, in which the family should be receiving not only the cash benefits of the supplementary benefits scheme but other benefits which flow from that, rather than trying to struggle to maintain itself with the man in full-time work.

Mr. Silkin: I appreciate that it may well be better to take advantage of supplementary benefits, but if that is so then such a situation exists today. In such circumstances are the fathers of families


of this kind being told not to work full time so that they can take advantage of supplementary benefits?

8.15 p.m.

Mr. Dean: The point is that we now have, in the new scheme, another possibility of helping the poorer families. At the moment, there is no choice. The father is either working full time or, if that is not appropriate and he is unable to do it, is taking supplementary benefits. The point is that there will be a grey area, as it were, between the supplementary benefit scheme as it now is and the F.I.S. The sort of cases which have been quoted may well fall more appropriately into the supplementary benefits net rather than into this net. But I agree that it will be a duty of my Department to advise families which may be on the borderline. That is the practical answer to the sort of case quoted.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: The position is, at least according to the supplementary benefits handbook, that where a man is physically capable of full-time work, at whatever level of payment he receives he is not entitled to draw supplementary benefit. This is the sort of example my hon. and learned Friend mentioned—where the man can do full-time work but where the remuneration is so low that it would be in the interests of the family, if he were not to do so. But that is not the present position; nor is it allowed to be. What the hon. Gentleman has advised is not at present possible. Perhaps he will make it so.

Mr. Dean: We have two examples here, and it is well to get the matter clear. One of the cases which the hon. and learned Gentleman quoted was that of a husband who is not physically capable—he quoted the case of a mentally subnormal man—and therefore is probably not obliged to be in full-time work, and it may well benefit that family to receive the support of the supplementary benefits arrangements. There may well be other families, as the hon. Lady has just said, where the husband is physically capable of being in full-time work and, therefore, should be in full-time work. It is these very families which the Bill is designed to help.
I accept that there will be some cases, perhaps only a very few, where a higher limit meant a higher rate of benefit, but that is a course of argument we discussed earlier and in which hon. Members opposite have conceded that we have to have some guard against the possibility of abuse and collusion. The short answer to the hon. Lady's point is that help will be available in the form of a family income supplement which is not available at the present time. That is the practical argument.
Another argument is that to introduce a discretion of this character into the scheme would be very substantially to alter it, to complicate it and to change the entire basis, because at the moment, of course, there is no intention of having a discretionary power. Here I must ask the House, as on other occasions, to accept that anything we introduce into this scheme which would make it more complicated, and anti-simplicity or anti-take-up advice, would be very undesirable, particularly at this early stage. Were we to introduce this discretionary power, it would substantially alter the character of the scheme. It would also mean detailed and searching inquiries into the domestic and financial circumstances of the claimants. Our basic purpose is to provide the framework of an essentially simple and straightforward scheme which potential claimants can readily understand and, above all, in which decisions can be made quickly and with the minimum questioning and inquiry.
For the practical reasons which I have given and because of the substantial change which would be made in the character of the scheme, I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not press the Amendments.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: The Opposition are far from satisfied with that answer and, although we have not had the opportunity of hearing any of them, I hope that many hon. Gentlemen opposite are dissatisfied. What it boils down to is that for purely administrative reasons and for the sake of tidiness and the concept that the Supplementary Benefits Commission should not have any discretion, cases with a particular problem and sometimes with hardship shall not be solved.
We deeply regret that that should be the attitude of the Government in this


matter. I fully understand that the hon. Gentleman came to the debate with something in mind as to how to deal with this complex series of Amendments, but now that he has had the opportunity to hear the case fully deployed, not only by me, but by the intereventions of my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) in his own speech, he and his right hon. Friend should be prepared seriously to consider the matter again.
I am bound to ask the hon. Gentleman to give a specific undertaking that that will be done. We sought such an undertaking in Committee. We again give him the opportunity to give a specific undertaking that he will be prepared to look again at the principle of giving this sort of discretion to the Commission in this sort of case and raising the limits in the kind of exceptional example which I have mentioned. The Opposition will not be satisfied unless we get a clear assurance and undertaking to that effect.

Mr. Dean: By leave of the House; I can reassure the hon. and learned Gentleman on that last point. He asks specifically for an assurance that the £3 limit will be looked at and not be fixed for all time. I readily give that assurance. The Bill contains power to increase the limit by regulation. I assure him that everything said in the debate will be carefully considered. We realise that in the working of the scheme we shall all learn from experience.
However, I doubt whether the sort of discretionary power which the hon. and learned Gentleman envisages for the Supplementary Benefits Commission will be appropriate for a scheme of this kind. It would substantially alter its character. Nevertheless, our minds are not closed to the points which have been made and we shall be ready to consider the working of the scheme and any changes which may be required in the light of experience.

Mr. Silkin: The first part of the hon. Gentleman's reply was not a reply at all. We are not considering possible future uplift, but raising the limit in hardship cases now. However, we are prepared to give the Government the benefit of the doubt and to construe the second part of what the hon. Gentleman said as a general assurance that the Government have

not closed their minds to giving certain discretionary powers to the Commission which could operate in the sort of case which we put to the Government in this series of Amendments.
It is on that clear understanding and no other that we shall not seek to divide the House. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 4

RESOURCES TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT

Mr. O'Malley: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 2, line 14, after 'provide', insert:
(a).

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I understand that with this Amendment it is convenient to take the following Amendments:
No. 7, in page 2, line 14, at end insert:
'and
(b) any sum paid by any member of the family towards the maintenance of his wife or former wife, provided that such sum is paid by virtue of an order of any court or is deducted from his earnings by virtue of an attachment of earnings order'.
No. 8, in page 2, line 14, at end insert:
( ) The amount by which any sum or sums which may after the commencement of this Act be receivable by any member of the family by virtue of any Act providing for the payment of family allowance shall exceed the sum or sums which, in the like circumstances, would at the commencement of this Act have been receivable by such person under the Family Allowances Acts 1965 to 1969.
No. 9, in page 2, line 14, at end insert:
( ) Any sum receivable by any member of the family by virtue of disablement due to war service.
No. 10, in page 2, line 14, at end insert:
( ) Any sum receivable by any member of the family by way of attendance allowance under section 4 of the National Insurance (Old Persons' and Widows' Pensions and Attendance Allowance) Act 1970.
No. 11, in page 2, line 14, at end insert:
( ) The first £2 of any income (other than such as is in this subsection specifically excluded) of any member of the family who is not engaged in full-time remunerative work.


No.12, in page 2, line 14, at end insert:
'and
(b) where any person who is not by virtue of section 6 of the Children Act 1958 disqualified for keeping foster children undertakes the care and maintenance of any foster child for reward, the amount by which any sum receivable by way of such reward exceeds the sum of £2'.
No.13, in page 2, line 26, at end insert:
(d) for substituting for the sum of £2 in subsection (1)(b) of this section such higher amount as may by regulations made under section 2 of this Act be substituted for the sum of £2 in the said section 2(1)(b).
No.24, in page 5, line 13, at end insert:
(6) The Secretary of State shall as soon as may be and in any event not later than six months after the day appointed by an order made under subsection (1) of section 16 of this Act make regulations providing for the matters contained in section 4(2)(b) of this Act.
No.25, in page 5, line 13, at end insert:
(6) The Secretary of State shall as soon as may be and in any event not later than six months after the day appointed by an order made under section 16(1) of this Act lay before Parliament a draft of regulations making provision for the matter contained in section 4(2)(b) of this Act.

Mr. O'Malley: The Amendments which we have been discussing so far have dealt with a possible situation which will affect only a small number of families. This series of Amendments deals with potentially every family who may be entitled to family income supplement. One hopes—and, in view of our discussions on similar Amendments in Committee, we may hope—that we shall receive support not only from my hon. Friends, but from Conservative Members.
This series of Amendments seeks to introduce disregards similar to those operated in the supplementary benefits system in assessing entitlement to the family income supplement. The House will recall that in Committee the Secretary of State came under considerable pressure on this subject. His attitude and that of the Under-Secretary of State at the time and earlier was that they wanted to keep the system as simple as possible and, certainly in the early stages of its operation, to have no disregards whatever. Fortunately, they were prepared to

think again. That was partly as a result of the representations of hon. Members on both sides of the House, and some of the Amendments are already conceded by the Government.
As there are many Amendments to be considered—Amendment No. 6 is merely the paving Amendment—it may be convenient if I deal briefly with the Official Opposition Amendments, leaving my hon. Friends and others to deal specifically and in more detail with Amendments which they have suggested.
In numerical order, the first to which I wish to refer is Amendment No. 8. We are here knocking at an open door. Its purpose is to provide that if at some time the Government decide to keep their promise made during the General Election—and we know that they are still considering whether they can keep that promise, and we have that on no less an authority than the Secretary of State—families receiving family income supplements will receive the full benefit of any family allowance increase.
In Committee the Secretary of State told my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams):
I can reassure the hon. Lady that any future increase in family allowances would not be reflected in the prescribed amount under the Bill."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1325.]
We put the Amendment down because the Bill does not make that clear. Unless it is incorporated in the Bill we shall not be clear how such increases can be disregarded. It could be done under Clause 4(2)(a) or (2)(b), or the £2 sum specified in Clause 2(1)(b) could be increased. We should welcome further information from the Secretary of State on this. I think that there is no difference between us here, but the principles should be clearly laid down in the Bill, just as a number of later Amendments should be incorporated, rather than having the matters with which they are concerned dealt with by regulations.
8.30 p.m.
Amendment No. 9 deals with income from disablement arising from war service, and Amendment No. 10 deals with income arising from attendance allowance under the 1970 Act. We have already been told since the Committee stage that the Secretary of State has decided to allow disregards in precisely


those two areas where the pressure was strongest. In a Written Answer on 25th November he said that he had decided to provide for the disregard of, first, £2 of any war disablement pension, which brings this scheme into line with supplementary benefit conditions, and second,
the whole of any attendance allowance or constant attendance allowance under the National Insurance, Industrial Injuries or War Pensions Schemes."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th November, 1970; Vol. 807, c. 177.]
The Minister who is to reply might well ask why we have tabled the Amendments, when the Government have already said in HANSARD that they are prepared to meet us on the matter. The point is that they are proposing to deal with it in regulations. I do not want to make too much of the issue, which certainly is no party political point, but the House should exercise considerable care in the use of delegated legislation. Wherever possible the wish of the House should be represented through principal legislation rather than delegated legislation. That argument has been going on for many years. I think that the first complaints were in a book on the subject as long ago as 1929. I am speaking from memory, because I could not find it when I looked for it a few hours ago, but I think that it was called "The New Despotism". Any hon. Member who has been in the House for a number of years must be concerned at the vast number of Statutory Instruments and regulations that we churn out through the machine which we have created.
We on this side see no reason why disregards for attendance allowance, war service persons and family allowance, which the families concerned may well have, should not be written into the principal legislation rather than put into regulations, which I understand will be under the negative rather than the affirmative procedure that we should want.
We welcome the Secretary of State's acceptance of the arguments that were put forward from both sides. He has thought again and given some disregards for war pensions and the attendance allowance. If he can introduce such disregards, with which we all agree, for those categories, is he not bound in equity also to introduce disregards, which are now a feature of the system, for other categories? [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary

laughs, but of course it is an inevitable argument.
I can remember precisely the same kind of attitude from right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite when we discussed the Bill about pensions for the over-80s. When we said that there would be pensions for some of the over-80s but not all, that was pooh-poohed. Now the chicken is coming home to roost. There was correspondence on the matter in The Guardian the other morning. We must be careful on this kind of issue, because once a principle has been introduced it is not only the Opposition that can seek to extend it. Groups outside the House can say, "A system of disregards is operating. Should not they apply to us, too?".
When we argued the case in Committee hon. Members on both sides said that there are some categories of people for which we can argue priorities, but having argued those priorities we are bound to go on to the next stage and say that, whilst we recognise that there may be difficulties in the initial months of the operation of the Measure, certainly in the longer-term, and I believe in the short-term, too, there must be some movement from the Government to include other kinds of income as disregards as well.
I am not entirely clear what income is disregarded at present, as I define the family rather than as the Bill defines it. To my non-legal mind, and even to the legal mind of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin), there is a difference between a family as defined by the Bill and the general understanding of the word.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Lincoln (Mr. Taverne) said on 18th October, as reported at columns 1298 and 1299 of HANSARD, that he was not clear how the income of young people in employment in the households concerned was to be treated. He was worried about the situation which I understand existed in the early 1930s, when young people leaving school and taking a job were virtually driven to live with their grandmother or an uncle to increase the financial entitlement of their mother and father and younger children in the household. The Secretary of State undertook to consider the matter and comment on it on Report. I hope that he will be


able to do so. Having looked at the Parliamentary Answers on the subject, I am not even clear whether the income of adult offspring in employment of a man and wife with younger children and living in the same household will be taken into account when assessing family income supplement.

Sir K. Joseph: It will not.

Mr. O'Malley: I am glad to hear that.
One of the difficulties arises because the Written Answer in c. 178 of the OFFICIAL REPORT of 25th November, 1970, is ungrammatical. I think that it is a printing error. However, I am fairly sure from the reply that entitlement will not be affected by the income of such people.
I am not sure about the situation concerning income from lodgers. I think that it was my right hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman) and the hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) who said that the Bill could be a scrounger's charter. If the income from lodgers is not taken into account, there might conceivably be difficulties in a few households with the kind of income which we have in mind.
Amendment No. 11 is, in our view, an important and substantive Amendment. If there are to be disregards for adult offspring living in the household, as the Secretary of State indicated just now, I should have thought, in view of our arguments about the mother who might be able to get a part-time job at under £2 to provide Christmas presents for her children, that the Minister could have gone a little further. People who would be helped by Amendment No. 11 would be people who were receiving disablement income, not through war pensions, but through industrial injuries legislation. I should have thought that they should have some kind of help.
The disregard provision under the supplementary benefit system concerning industrial disablement pensions states:
The amount by which a war or industrial widow's pension exceeds the standard rate of the National Insurance widow's pension up to 20s. a week
can be disregarded for superannuation purposes, for example. The House would probably take the view that we should

introduce that kind of system of disregards. The superannuation disregard is an interesting example of the justice of the case. Recently it was decided that a gentleman in my constituency who had been in regular employment for a number of years could no longer carry on with his job on medical grounds. After great difficulty, he found another but not a well-paid job. He was receiving a small amount of superannuation on a monthly basis as a result of the payments which he had made in his previous job. I should have thought that we should be able to do something about cases like that.
The Secretary of State is concerned to get the scheme off the ground by August next year. A fortnight ago he thought that he could not do anything about war pensions, for example, because he wanted to keep the scheme simple. However, happily, he has been able to say, "I can get the scheme working by the target date and I can include these disregards for war pensioners and people receiving attendance allowance". I hope that he will be able to go a little further. But, in case he cannot, I should like to refer to Amendments Nos. 24 and 25, which are alternative ways of expressing the same idea. The reason for tabling them was that as the Bill is drafted regulations made under Clause 4 are subject to the negative procedure. Therefore, Amendment No. 24 is applicable to our discussion. Since Amendment No. 23 was not selected, I will not pursue Amendment No. 25, which was concerned with the affirmative procedure.
We understand the Secretary of State's difficulties which will arise after launching the scheme. If he found himself unable to concede the introduction of further disregards on the date of the launching of the scheme, he should nevertheless be able, six months afterwards, to introduce regulations dealing with problems of the sort that I have outlined. Amendment No. 11 allows the Secretary of State to go further than he has been able to go, and I hope that upon reflection he will find he can go further. If there are difficulties of timing, Amendment No. 24 will help him.

8.45 p.m.

Mr. McNamara: With reference to Amendment No. 12, on behalf of myself and my hon. Friends, and I am sure on


behalf of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite who spoke in support of me in Committee, I thank the Minister for announcing in a written reply in column 177 of HANSARD on 25th November that allowances paid by local authorities for foster children will not, under regulations to be published, affect entitlement to family income supplement under the Bill. This is an important concession and we are grateful for it.
Having first raised the matter in Committee and my first shot having been followed by a more eloquent fusillade from the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), I hope that Amendment 7 will be equally well received, and perhaps even get a salvo of support from the right hon. Gentleman.
Amendment No. 7 reads:
Page 2, line 14, at end insert:
'and
(b) any sum paid by any member of the family towards the maintenance of his wife or former wife, provided that such sum is paid by virtue of an order of any court or is deducted from his earnings by virtue of an attachment of earnings order'.
In a Written Answer to a Question from the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Kinsey) the right hon. Gentleman said:
The rate of family income supplement depends upon the income of the family and the number of children.
He said later in reply to another Question:
For this purpose it would clearly be wrong to ignore income of the wife altogether; and there would be strong objections to an arrangement which took account of a wife's income and not that of a woman living as a wife."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 25th November, 1970; Vol. 807, c. 178.]
In replying to this point in Committee the right hon. Gentleman said:
Here again I must ask the Committee to be understanding. To allow deductions for costs would involve a great increase in checking. We could not always rely on an individual's saying, 'I must pay out £4 a week' for this or that arrangement. It could be collusive in many cases. There would need to be checking, and once we introduce checking our chance of having a 1st August, 1971, start to payment will be in danger."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1327.]
It is to this argument that I wish to address myself. First, the Amendment has been narrowed so as not to include those family agreements which are made between couples but to include precise

attachment of earnings orders or court orders. I think, therefore, that the argument about possible collusion falls to the ground. Secondly, claims for attachment orders can easily be checked by reference to the employer, to whom reference may in any case be made as to the man's income, when he is applying for the family income supplement. This is almost certain to happen in dubious cases. Claims for court orders can easily be checked by reference to the clerk to the court, merely by picking up a telephone, to ensure that payments are being punctually and regularly made.
I refer the right hon. Gentleman to the first quotation I gave of his Answers to Questions, namely:
The rate of family income supplement depends upon the income of the family and the number of children.
For the purpose of the Bill I suggest that a payment covered by the Amendment cannot be regarded as income of the family. On the contrary, it is income of another family, and this brings me to my third point, the position of the recipient of such an order.
The second quotation I made from the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to it being wrong to ignore the income of the wife altogether is of importance. My point is that "income" is a general term and, as well as applying to wages and salaries, comprises anything in the nature of a maintenance order, an attachment order, or payment of special benefits. If for the purposes of the Bill the money going into a household to a woman is to be counted and if it is thought that it would be wrong to ignore the wife's income altogether, surely equity demands that money going from a man in these circumstances should be disregarded under the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He cannot account for its going in and not for its going out. This is the nub of the problem.
The right hon. Gentleman said that I specialise in difficult cases. I wish if only from the point of view of the domestic happiness of the people involved, that these cases did not exist. I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman's desire that the Bill should be implemented quickly, but I feel that the difficulties which he anticipates are not so insuperable that they cannot be overcome. I believe they


can be overcome in the manner I have indicated.
If the Secretary of State cannot accept this Amendment, I hope that at least he will give an undertaking to look at the matter to see whether regulations can be made, as he has done in the case of other disregards.

Sir K. Joseph: I am almost amused by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley), who consumes all he is given and then charmingly goes on to ask for much more. His appetite grows by what it feeds upon.
This is a debate about a series of disregards in which the combined voices of hon. Members opposite and my hon. and right hon. Friends have already pushed the Government into conceding two groups of disregards. And yet the Opposition still ask for more. The hon. Member for Rotherham even went so far as to get out the handbook on supplementary benefits, and I suppose I should be grateful that he did not include all the disregards in the supplementary benefits system. We are seeking to get into payment as quickly as possible a scheme for the relief of the poorest of the wage-earning poor. Therefore, I ask the House to sympathise with our objective of limiting the disregards—if not to nil, as was the Government's starting position, at least to the position that we have now conceded.
During the Committee stage the Government was attacked very effectively from both sides of the House and the unique position of the war disabled was emphasised both by the Opposition and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), in a powerful speech, supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward). There was also a combined operation on the attendance allowance for the very severely disabled which will not come into payment as quickly as the family income supplement itself.
Here again the Government have been able to meet the wishes of both sides of the House and to go a little further by conceding a disregard for constant attendance allowance under the industrial injuries or war pensions schemes, as well as under the Act of July this year, for

the very severely disabled. We were able to make these concessions, first, because the number of cases will be relatively small and, secondly, because the payments can easily be checked. We are dealing with a fixed disregard for the war disabled and a fixed allowance for the others whom I have mentioned.
A large number of the disregards proposed in this group of Amendments does not present the administration of the Bill with simplicity. There would be need for checking. There would necessarily be complication of the instructions to those concerned, and a need to produce very sophisticated definitions of what a family was entitled to.
Before I examine each of the cases put forward, I repeat that we are perfectly willing to review the whole case for disregards, when the Act has been in operation for a year or so. If we find that the purpose of the Bill, namely the relief of the poorest wage-earning families, is being frustrated by a failure to introduce disregards, we shall use our power under regulations to introduce disregards. But that will be at stage 2, when we have got the family incomes supplements successfully into payment.
Meanwhile, I can give both sides of the House the comfort that we are not now discussing an early use of regulations, soon after the Bill has come into operation, to bring in the disregards which the Government have conceded. The regulations which we have undertaken to introduce will be introduced early next year. Thus the two disregards which the Government have conceded will be in action from Day 1 of the scheme. While I cannot satisfy those who have moved these Amendments on the disregards that they are now seeking, I am meeting the wishes of the House earlier than was contemplated for the disregards which have been conceded.
As for the individual cases mentioned, first, there is the Amendment spoken to by both the hon. Member for Rotherham and the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara), connected with the payment of maintenance under a court order. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North has nearly disarmed me because I was about to ask how there can be any fairness in disregarding only a payment made under a court order. What about


the maintenance made voluntarily? His argument has added force because he went out of his way to suggest a disregard only in a situation where the payment can be easily checked.
But he has not gone the whole way, because if we made a disregard for maintenance under a court order, we should still have to find out whether that maintenance was being paid. We should be faced with a large number of people saying, "You are disregarding this particular form of payment. Why not disregard also the maintenance I am receiving voluntarily, or the maintenance for a child which is paid either under a court order or voluntarily?" We should find ourselves in a quicksand. I ask the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North to accept that, once we have the family income supplement in payment and have had about a year's experience of its working, then is the time to look and see whether our purpose is being frustrated by a failure to have this sort of disregard.

Mr. McNamara: I do not want to disarm the right hon. Gentleman completely, but will he look at my arguments and arrange for an announcement to be made in the other place, as he said that he would on the point about double incomes?

9.0 p.m.

Sir K. Joseph: I am learning to distrust the seductive invitations of hon. Gentlemen opposite. Of course we will consider the arguments, but I make no promise of any further movement on disregards.
I come to the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Rotherham on disregarding an increase in family allowances. Here we are in fairly deep water. Among other methods of helping the poorest, we are contemplating the use of family allowances. If we decided to use them with or without some claw-back operation and were by that means to succeed in lifting groups of families now in the F.I.S. bracket out of that bracket, would it make sense at once to disregard the increase in family allowances?
We do not have to deal with poverty by methods which duplicate each other. If we succeed in eliminating the worst poverty by family allowances, we can set aside the use for that purpose of the

family income supplement. Yet we are asked to duplicate any benefit that we provide for the poorest families. I must remind the House that an increase in family allowances is not disregarded for supplementary benefit. A family allowance is taken fully into account for supplementary benefit. For the purpose of this scheme there is, in effect, a 50 per cent. disregard because of the taper in the family income supplement.
In answering the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) in Committee, I was guilty of a serious ambiguity in the assurance that I tried to give her on family allowances. It was kind of her and her hon. Friend not to tease me with such a very ambivalent quotation from what I said. What I meant to say is that we shall keep a careful eye on the prescribed amounts, by which I mean the ceiling up to which incomes are half made good by F.I.S. In watching the prescribed amounts, we shall take into account the movement of earnings and prices and such factors as any change in family allowances. We have power to change the prescribed amounts and, in using the power under regulations to change the prescribed amounts, the family allowance scale will be one of the factors that we shall take into account.
I come next to the Amendment asking for a total disregard for all pensions payable on account of war disability. Here we have been able to assure hon. Members that we shall introduce regulations early in the new year to provide a £2 disregard for war disability pensions. But we would be going much further than any Government have done if we were to disregard the whole of a war disability pension. By hypothesis, we are dealing with the family whose wage earner is in full time work. If we disregarded the full amount of a war disability pension, we would bring help to some families whose wage earners would be in income brackets above the F.I.S. concept. I ask the House to accept £2 as a satisfactory proposition at this stage.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: On the point made by the right hon. Gentleman about the ambiguity of the answer which he gave me in Committee, may we take it that it is at least possible that an increase in family allowances would not be fully taken into account in the prescribed


income; that is, that it might be possible for an increase in family allowances to be paid without deductions to those who were drawing family income supplement?

Sir K. Joseph: I must ask the hon. Lady to understand that if we were to put that into the Bill now we would unduly complicate the working of the Act in its first vital stage.
As to stage 2, I would rather keep a free hand. It is not possible for the Government at this stage to know exactly what method will follow the family income supplement, and the rent allowance as the next ingredient, in our campaign against family poverty. We shall, of course, wish to concentrate on our prime objective of bringing help to the poorest wage earning households with children. I take the hon. Lady's objective to be the same as mine—to bring help to those households. We may want to do it by ways which include family allowance increases or by ways which do not. However, I cannot bind myself to propose a disregard for increases in family allowances at this stage.
The next Amendment for a disregard for the constant attendance allowance has been met by the Government. The House is now being asked to put this disregard into the Bill. The Government have undertaken to introduce it by regulations. I suggest that, in the light of that assurance, it would be a mistake to introduce this one isolated disregard into the draft of the Bill now.
I now come to a fairly considerable proposal—to disregard the first £2 of earnings of a wife in part-time work. I am not sure why the Opposition limited the proposed disregard only to wives in part-time work. They might have wanted to do it also for wives in full-time work. Be that as it may, we are now into a realm which would involve a great deal of checking. For the first stage, I again beg the House to allow us to retain the simple structure that we want. I am not absolutely sure that it is fair to disregard the first £2 of a wife's earnings to bring family income supplement to the help of a family whose income is £2 above the prescribed amount, when at the same time we are refusing family income supplement to a family where the wage

earner alone is earning up to £2 above the prescribed amount. How can that necessarily be equitable? Yet this is what the Opposition are asking us to do. This is understandable, because they have the same objective as we—to help the poorest wage earning families.
I remind the Opposition that the earnings of a part-time or, indeed, of a full-time working wife are 50 per cent. disregarded anyway by the operation of the taper while the total family income remains below the prescribed amount. But again I must rest on the plea for simplicity during the operation of stage 1 of the Bill.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: I apologise for interrupting again. I should like to make the position quite clear. The right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that few people are able to work without incurring some additional expense. It may be fares, clothes, or other things. Therefore, if there is no disregard for an additional member of the family working, the net effect is to reduce the income of the family from the level at which it would be if that person were not working. Our purpose was to remove what was clearly a disincentive to work part-time for wives in poor families, though we did not wish to press or force them into full-time work.

Sir K. Joseph: I must explain to the House that there is built into the prescribed amount an allowance for working expenses, but that is only for one worker in a family. The hon. Lady is right in saying that if there are two workers in the family there is no double allowance for working expenses, but here the taper comes into effect again. Provided the family income is more than about 8s. below the prescribed amount, it may still be worth while for a wife to do some part-time work, because she will keep 50 per cent. of the benefit after deducting working expenses up to the prescribed amount. I undertake during the first year of the operation of the Act to see whether this sort of problem is damaging to our main purpose, and if it is we shall introduce a disregard later.
I come, now, to the difficult problem of the fostering family, on the receiving end, or the providing end. I do not want to deceive the House in any way. The concession made by the Government in


response to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North affects the child boarded out by a local authority. We are at this stage flinching from trying to cover a child privately fostered, because that leads us into difficult questions of checking, and we would rather leave that until later. We believe that there will be a few cases, but we shall watch the position during the first year and, if necessary, introduce a disregard later.
I now come to Amendments Nos. 24 and 25 which ask us to bind ourselves to using the regulations for disregards within six months of the appointed day. As I have told the House, we are beating that deadline for the disregards. They will come into effect from the appointed day itself. I ask the House not to press these two Amendments binding us to a six months' experience of the Act. I am asking for at least a year. I would rather not be bound by any definition in the Bill. The Government undertake to watch the position during the first year, and after about that time to report whether, in their view, further disregards are needed.
In the light of those rather complicated, and inter-related arguments I hope that hon. Members opposite will not press this group of Amendments to a Division. We have made concessions in response to strongly-felt demands from both sides of the House. We have told the House that after the first year of the operation of the Act we hope to have enough experience to come back again with any disregards that are necessary to achieve the joint purpose of all of us, and I hope that the Amendments will not be pressed to a Division.

Mr. Albert Booth: Many of the Amendments are aimed at giving the Minister power to make regulations about disregards. He has argued against having this power on the grounds that it would not be possible to introduce regulations before the Bill comes into effect. I suggest that this is a strange argument to use against the background of the whole history of the powers to make regulations which rests in the hands of Ministers.
The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that many of his right hon. Friends go on churning out Statutory Instruments

year in year out, month in month out, using powers that were accorded to them, or their predecessors, many years ago. These powers were accorded to the right hon. Gentleman's right hon. Friends and their predecessors precisely because the House, in its wisdom, judged that Ministers should have power to make regulations dealing with circumstances as and when they were convinced it was practicable and wise to do so. I can see no reason whatsover why that logic and that reasoning should be turned on its head tonight.
It has been conceded in Committee and again tonight that there is a tremendous amount to be learned in the early stages of the working of the Bill. It must follow that we cannot make a perfect judgment of all the disregards required before the Measure comes into operation.
9.15 p.m.
I therefore urge the Secretary of State carefully to consider whether or not he should accept the power to make regulations for disregards as and when he has the information and experience and is convinced of the practicability of putting the machinery into operation to work them properly, rather than seeking at this stage to say, "We can have in the Bill reference only to those disregards which we can operate from the word 'go' when the Measure is put into force." That would be very unwise; in fact, it would be against precedent and logic, and the purpose of Parliament in giving the Minister power to make regulations.
If we wanted to provide for only those disregards that would operate from the date of the coming into force of the Measure we should write the disregards into it and make no reference to regulations in respect of the provisions of disregards. But when we examine the Bill we find that almost all the way through it is qualified by the power to make regulations. I shall stretch the truth only a little if I said that the only thing that the Bill defines is a family, because once we are past Clause 1 we find that the prescribed amount is subject to regulations which may substitute higher amounts; Clause 3 refers to regulations that may vary the amounts from time to time, and Clause 4 refers to regulations that may exclude the income of children. There are regulations for virtually every disregard in that Clause.
Clause 5 contains the proviso
except where regulations otherwise provide
in connection with the general proposition that both a man's and a woman's income shall be related to the family income supplement. Clause 6 enables regulations to be made against the general right or entitlement given by the Bill in respect of payment for 26 weeks. I do not want to bore the House ad nauseam, but one can adduce the same arguments right through to Clause 10.
The Bill is designed to vary by virtue of the Minister's having power to make regulations. The Minister obviously intended the Bill to be flexible—an instrument that would enable him to vary not only the amount of family income supplement from time to time but the way in which it should be paid, who should qualify for it, and so on. The House should totally reject the Minister's argument that we should not make provision for regulations to introduce disregards as and when the Secretary of State judges that it is practicable and desirable to do so.

Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter: I know that to a Minister in charge of a Bill even a speech expressing gratitude and appreciation is not always warmly received when it consumes some amount of Government time. Nonetheless, I want to express to my right hon. Friend my appreciation—and I believe that I can also express that of my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward)—for the distance that he has gone to meet the points that she and I, and some hon. Members opposite, sought to press on him in Committee.
I can well understand that a Minister introducing a Bill of this kind—my right hon. Friend has not sought to conceal the fact that it is not wholly free from administrative difficulty—should be naturally inclined to go for simplicity and to exclude disregards. That was the line properly taken by the Parliamentary Secretary in the Second Reading debate. Therefore, I the more appreciate the fact that my right hon. Friend has listened to the views expressed from both sides and has moved on the subject of disregards.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend has met the point made by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North

(Mr. McNamara), as well as by the right hon. Member for Kingston-upon-Thames, by curious coincidence, about the foster child. My right hon. Friend's argument for confining this disregard to the child placed in care by a local authority is very strong. If the admittedly perfectly normal cases where this is done by voluntary arrangement are brought in, the possibilities of abuse is obvious to the House. Where there is a placing by a local authority, there is no such risk. I can understand my right hon. Friend's confining this very welcome concession in this way.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend has met us to some extent on war pensions. I am not wholly convinced that he could not have gone the whole way and gone as far as the Chancellor of the Exchequer does in disregarding all war disability pensions and allowances. However, my right hon. Friend has followed—this is an argument in his favour—the same limit, as I understand it, as that laid down for supplementary benefit. This is not only important in practical terms. It is also important as a recognition of the special importance of war pensions in our whole social security system. Any abandonment of the doctrine of priority for war pensioners and special treatment of war pensions in our system would be very much resented by those on both sides of the House and outside who feel that those injured in the service of their country are entitled to special and peculiar treatment.
I am glad that my right hon. Friend has met us in the war pension and industrial injury field and in the field of his own legislation in respect of constant attendance allowance. This is a good forward move.
I do not think that anyone outside my right hon. Friend's Department can form a completely satisfactory judgment on the balance between the social desirability of more disregards, on the one hand, and the administrative complications and delays resulting from granting them, on the other. This is the difficulty the House is in. We must take my right hon. Friend's judgment on this. I for my part take it with the more confidence because my right hon. Friend has abandoned the original position of no disregards and has shown his understanding of the point which some of us were trying to make by


granting the particular ones to which I have referred.
The fact that my right hon. Friend has done that—here I come to the argument of the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth)—is an indication that he is genuinely concerned to meet, so far as is practically possible, the social problems which disregards generally are intended to meet. In other words, my right hon. Friend has indicated that he is willing to see the force of these arguments. In the light of that, I believe that my right hon. Friend has indicated that as it becomes possible, as the scheme develops, there will be further introductions of disregards, some of them those covered by these Amendments.
I am entirely against the hon. Member for Barrow-in-Furness in his criticism of doing this by regulation. With complex administrative arrangements such as these it does not make sense to tie this Minister or any Minister to precise statutory provisions at statutorily determined dates. The Minister must be left a reasonable margin of flexibility.
Naturally this raises the point whether we can trust the Minister. Because of the changes that my right hon. Friend has announced, I think that he has indicated that he is a Minister that we can trust in this respect. Therefore, I repeat my appreciation and gratitude and that of my hon. Friend the Member for Tyne-mouth to my right hon. Friend for meeting these points. Gratitude having been defined as a lively anticipation of favours to come, I hope that a steady flow of genial and amending Regulations extending disregards will follow.

Mr. Michael Meacher: Like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), I am grateful for the small concessions which the Secretary of State has felt able to make on disregards, but I have certain questions to put nevertheless.
The Secretary of State said that he would look again at the question of disregards after a year or so if he felt that the essential purpose of the Bill was being frustrated. Will he, therefore, give some idea—only an approximate idea—of the level of take-up which he would regard as indicating the need for a further concession in terms of disregards?
The right hon. Gentleman harped at some length on the need for simplicity. I take it that in the calculation of gross family income all forms of income which come into a household will have to be taken into account. I cannot see, therefore, why it is more difficult to do this from the point of view of disregards than from the point of view of the basic calculation of what the F.I.S. entitlement will be. Will the right hon. Gentleman clarify why the need for simplicity should make it more difficult to offer further disregards?

Mr. O'Malley: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman has exhausted his right to speak in this debate, but he may speak again with the leave of the House—which is rarely given at the Report stage.

Mr. O'Malley: I am grateful for your guidance, Mr. Speaker. May I have the leave of the House to make three brief points?
The right hon. Gentleman asked us to sympathise with him in his difficulties. We sympathise with the poor, not with the right hon. Gentleman, and, of course, the poor need sympathy under his Government, as we all know.
The right hon. Gentleman has moved some way. He has moved on war pensions, and he has moved on attendance allowance, and we are grateful on both sides of the House for his reconsideration of the matter. He has gone further and said that he would expect a review of the whole operation to take place—as he put it—within a year or so, not within a year or at the end of the first year. I hope that he did not put too broad a meaning on the words, "within a year or so".
One understands some of the difficulties, and, at this stage of our proceedings, albeit grudgingly, we accept what he said and hope to see extended concessions in respect of disregards in what the right hon. Gentleman described as phase 2 of the scheme. I have one question to put, and I am sure that he will be able to meet it. The right hon. Gentleman explained that one of the reasons why he could not accept some of the disregards which we propose was the great difficulty in checking them. He said that it was not like that with war pensions.


It would not be like that, either, with industrial injury disablement pensions, would it? Could not the right hon. Gentleman help us on that tonight, or at least say that he will look at it before the Bill goes to another place?

Sir K. Joseph: If I may have the leave of the House, I should like to say a few words in reply.
All these questions are a matter of balance. Every disregard which we concede has to be embodied in the instructions to all the staff concerned, as well as involving extra checking. I assure the hon. Gentleman the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) that the Government aim to reach the poorest of the poor and will be bitterly disappointed if the take-up is not substantial.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) for both the content and the polished precision of the kindly speech which he has just made. I hope that the House will accept what I have been able to do.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Alfred Morris: The right hon. Gentleman will know how much I appreciate his concession disregarding attendance and constant attendance allowances in respect of the care of severely disabled people. I welcome also the concession in respect of the war disabled. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman can tell us what is his estimate of the difference in costs between the proposition we are making for the war disabled in Amendment No. 9 and the cost of the disregard he is proposing?

Sir K. Joseph: indicated dissent.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 6

DETERMINATION OF RIGHT TO, AND AMOUNT OF, FAMILY INCOME SUPPLEMENT

Mr. S. C. Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 16, in page 3, line 3, at end insert
'or for such lesser period (not being less than four weeks) as may elapse before a further claim is made'.

This Amendment is intended to deal with the situation of a deterioration in family income which can occur during the half year period which at present is a fixed period for which a family income supplement is to run. We had a trial run on this in Committee and after considerable pressure the hon. Gentleman was good enough to say:
What I can tell him is that if a person would be in a more favourable position, if he would get a larger FIS, by claiming rather later, then that is a valid point…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1352.]
We are glad to have his assurance that he accepted that fact. He went on to say that this could be dealt with by regulations.
We fully appreciate that, but we have carefully considered the point of whether it needs to be dealt with by regulations or whether it cannot be written into the Bill. We feel it can and should and that is why we have tabled this Amendment. We propose that after a period of not less than four weeks—and we are not wedded to the four week period; we are open to argument about that—it should be open to a family in receipt of family income supplement simply to make another claim.
Of course it would not do it if its circumstances had improved in the meantime; it would only do it if its circumstances had worsened. If it is enabled in that way to make another claim it will be open to the Supplementary Benefits Commission to look at the situation as it exists in the deteriorated family circumstances and to deal with them as they are. We feel that this is a reasonable Amendment which will deal with a number of different sorts of cases, the sort of case for example where a man, a breadwinner, has to undergo a change of employment which means a loss of wages, or where he has been in receipt of regular overtime and that overtime suddenly stops. We all know that that sort of circumstance occurs. It will also deal, we hope, with the problem of the seasonal trades. In many cases the income produced by the seasonal trades would be well above the prescribed amounts in the Bill. There are also many fringe activities where the pay is very low. I would instance in particular certain domestic employments in holiday


areas. There may be quite a sharp drop in the income of the breadwinner when the season comes to an end. Yet, if the original application is made, let us say in August, the Bill as drafted will not enable a further application to be made until February. So during perhaps the worst part of the year the supplement is based on the highest earnings of the family in the course of the year.
Why should it not in these circumstances be possible in September, when the earnings of the breadwinner have reached their low point, for a new application to be made, provided, of course, that a reasonable time. which we suggest as four weeks, has elapsed since the original application was made?
The Amendment is simple. It would not complicate the Bill in any way. It would simply write into it an opportunity to make a further claim in circumstances such as I have mentioned, and unless there are insuperable administrative difficulties, which at the moment we cannot understand, to that right being enshrined in the Bill, we can see no reason why this exercise should be left to the variability of the regulations.

Mr. Dean: As the hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) has said, this point was discussed in Committee, when I gave an assurance that we would seek to deal with it by regulations. I am afraid that I am going to have to suggest that perhaps the way of dealing with the problem which he suggests will not be appropriate and may well not be in the interests of many F.I.S. candidates. But I hope that I will be able to assure the House that the sort of problems he has raised today and in Committee will be satisfactorily dealt with either under the regulations or under the Bill itself.
The hon. and learned Gentleman raised a number of cases and I will try to explain how they may be dealt with under the 26-week rule, the better or for worse rule, that we propose. In the first place, there may be a mistake as to a material fact about the amount of income which is concerned. I think that this was one of the points he was concerned about in Committee. It is intended to cover that under the regulations under Clause 10, which will provide for such a case to

be reviewed at once. In other words, the 26-week period would not have to proceed in the case of a mistake as to a material fact. It would be reviewed at once, as we propose, under the regulations.
Then there are the circumstances of the seasonal workers and also those of a person changing his job and where it might not be possible to assess what the earnings are from full time work. In cases where it is not possible to ascertain with certainty normal work—seasonal work, change of job, and so on—a short award can be made to enable the normal pattern of earnings to be established. This would cover another category of people the hon. and learned Gentleman had in mind. Furthermore, it will be open to the claimant to withdraw a claim at any time before it has been determined if, for some reason, he feels that the information provided is not adequate. So I hope that the House will feel that the regulation to be made under the Bill and the way in which we propose that these definitions shall be dealt with will adequately cover the points he has in mind.
To go further and adopt the Amendment would cause considerable difficulty. One of the advantages of the 26-week rule, the "for better or for worse" rule, is simplicity—we keep returning to the need for simplicity in the scheme. But it also means that if the earnings of a F.I.S. family increase during that 26-week period, the family gets the benefit, such an increase is not taken into account.
If we were to have a provision such as the Amendment for a review after a four-week period in favour of the family concerned, we should equally have to have a review if it were to the family's disadvantage, and some families might be worse off. The House as guardian of the taxpayers' money would not accept the proposition that we should allow the scheme to operate in one way and not the other.
I hope that the House will feel that there are advantages of simplicity in the 26-week period and also that a substantial number of families will thereby gain. In the light of that explanation, I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will not wish to press the Amendment.

Mr. Meacher: I note with great interest what the Under-Secretary has said


and I ask him to confirm one point. Will he assure us, as he is so set on keeping the 26-week period, that benefit once determined will not be reduced as the result of change of circumstances of applicants? This seems to be what he was saying and it is certainly the wording of Clause 6(2)(b) which sets out the position "except where regulations otherwise provide". As we have little information about precisely what the regulations will or will not provide, may we have an assurance that the level of F.I.S. will not be changed after the original determination for a working, though unmarried, or deserted, mother, following, for example, an alleged discovery of cohabitation?

Mr. Dean: By leave of the House, I will take into account the point which the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has raised. It is certainly the intention that the 26-week rule shall apply irrespective of changes in circumstances. There is power in the Bill to make changes if, in the light of experience, it is felt that they would be appropriate.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 8

PREVENTION OF DOUBLE PAYMENTS AND RECOVERY OF OVERPAYMENTS

9.45 p.m.

Mr. S. C. Silkin: I beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 3, line 37 leave out 'disclosed all material facts' and insert:
'throughout used due care and diligence in making the claim by virtue of which the said sums were paid'.
An Amendment intended to have a similar effect—to reduce the hardship which we believe will flow from the strict wording of the Clause—was not accepted by the Government in Committee, but the Secretary of State was good enough to say that he sympathised with its object and was impressed by the homework done by my hon. Friends. We have done a little more because the right hon. Gentleman, when upholding the form of words in the subsection, mentioned that it was not unprecedented and referred in particular to the National Superannuation and Social Insurance Bill which was intro-

duced by the Labour Government but which, unhappily, did not become law. We therefore thought it appropriate to do our homework by seeing what that Bill said on similar subjects.
We found that in Clause 45(2) the words used in circumstances analogous to the present circumstances are those which we have proposed in the Amendment. We felt that the right hon. Gentleman would applaud our proposal to follow what he regarded as a precedent. The words which we seek to substitute are much less harsh to those concerned than the present wording. At present the Clause provides that regulations can provide for the recovery of over-paid sums where the persons by whom the sums were receivable cannot satisfy the Commission or the Appeal Tribunal that they had disclosed all material facts.
That is a very stringent provision. We believe that it would be sufficient to use the wording of the Bill to which I have referred. The obligation upon those involved should be simply to show that throughout they have used due care and diligence in making a claim by virtue of which the sums are paid.
That is not a very extensive Amendment, and I hope that at this late hour the Minister will find within himself sufficient feeling and generosity to accept it.

Mr. Dean: The hon. and learned Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) has suggested that the proposal in the Amendment is less harsh than the proposals in the Bill. I am rather doubtful whether that is so. If we felt that it was, the case would be very strong for substituting the words the hon. and learned Gentleman proposes.
The Amendment would change the test to be applied before repayment can be required of a sum of family income supplement which has been overpaid. Under the Bill, the payee need not repay if he can satisfy the adjudicating authorities that he has disclosed all material facts. The Amendment would substitute the test of due care and diligence. The test in the Bill is based on the Ministry of Social Security Act, and will therefore be familiar to the Appeal Tribunals which will consider disputes. Due care and diligence, the test which the hon. and learned Gentleman seeks to substitute, is a test used for National


Insurance purposes, and would be a new one for the supplementary benefit determining authority.
I readily concede that in practice it is likely that in the majority of cases they would produce much the same result, but the important point is that the material facts test is objective, and therefore easier and more straightforward to apply than the subjective test of due care and diligence.
I do not claim that there is a substantial difference here, but I think that in the light of experience in the working of the National Insurance Scheme and the Supplementary Benefits Scheme the chances are that the test in the Bill would be both fairer and more familiar to the adjudicating authorities, and therefore less harsh than the hon. and learned Gentleman's proposal.
The powers to recover over-payments are discretionary, and it will not be the Government's policy to make recovery if hardship would thereby result. I hope that the hon. and learned Member will feel that the objective, which we share, will probably be better achieved by the wording of the Bill rather than by the Amendment.

Mr. Hugh D. Brown: The hon. Gentleman says that the power to recover is discretionary. I do not want to go into the question of disregards or what is meant by "discretionary", but will this matter be covered by regulations? I do not share the confidence of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dulwich (Mr. S. C. Silkin) in what he said about whether we had done our homework on the last occasion, but the instance which I gave was that of an over-payment of family income supplement and whether it would be possible to recover it from a widow's benefit.
Will the Minister give some indication of the broad lines on which this discretion will operate; or will the matter be left for decision by an officer?

Mr. Dean: With leave, may I say that the intention is to follow the well-established normal practice in our social security arrangements—and this is a wide discretionary power—to ensure that repayment is not recovered if it would result in hardship for the family concerned.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. O'Malley: I beg to move Amendment No. 18, in page 3, line 43, after '1970', insert 'or'.

Mr. Speaker: I suggest that we discuss at the same time Amendment No. 19, in page 3, line 44, leave out
'or the Family Allowances Acts 1965 to 1969'.

Mr. O'Malley: Clause 8 deals with the prevention of double payments and recovery of over-payments. The Secretary of State and myself had exchanges about whether the powers in subsection (4) were unprecedented. He was right, and I was not. I apologise to him.
On 18th November the Secretary of State said:
On reflection, therefore, after listening to the hon. Gentleman, I think that I ought to reconsider the new power which is covered by the Amendment, namely, the power to recover an over-payment from future family allowances. I give the assurance that I shall look again at that element in the Clause".
Later the right hon. Gentleman said:
I am not happy about the implications of recovery of family allowances."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 1363 and 1365.]
We should like to know the Government's thinking in the meantime.

Mr. Dean: As the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley) said, the powers in subsection (4) are not unprecedented. He went on to point out that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said that he would consider the arguments which had been put forward. I should like to give the reasons why, on consideration, we do not feel that it would be appropriate to go as far as the hon. Gentleman would like us to go.
In Committee my right hon. Friend said that he wished to have a look at the arguments which had been put forward and to consider whether there was need to make changes in the arrangements, particularly as we were here dealing with very poor families. As the hon. Gentleman has agreed, there are precedents, in particular in the Ministry of Social Security Act 1966, which provides specifically for the recovery of over-paid supplementary benefit from any national insurance or industrial injury benefit. The only over-payments that can be recovered from family allowances are over-payments of family allowances.
In effect, the family income supplement is a supplement to family allowances.


The great majority of families claiming it will also be receiving family allowances. It will be a matter of chance whether at some future date they receive national insurance or industrial injury benefit. Thus, removal of the provision for recovery of over-payment from family allowances would be a serious weakening in our power to deal with abuse, but hon. Members can be assured that we shall not use this power where hardship would be caused. This is exactly the point which I have just made in answer to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Provan (Mr. Hugh D. Brown).
For example, there would be no question of withdrawing family allowances altogether from a family only just above the F.I.S. level. It has always been the policy to avoid pressing recovery to the point of hardship, and it is the firm intention of the Government that this should continue to be the rule. However, it is possible that someone quite comfortably off, by understating his income, might get a family income supplement, and it would be reasonable in such cases for us to have power to recover from the family allowance, which may be the only allowance which is in payment.
I emphasise that there would be no question of recovery if it caused hardship to the family concerned, but to have no power of recovery in instances where there had been over-payment and in particular where there had been abuse through income being understated, would leave us wide open to abuse within the scheme which we would not without this power be able to deal with adequately.

Mr. O'Malley: I note that I was to some extent right in the exchange to which I have referred, in that over-payment of another benefit cannot be deducted from family allowances. Indeed, I thought it went wider than that.
We should be more comfortable about the Government's refusal to change the Clause as we are suggesting if the hon. Gentleman could give us statistics of how sparingly or on how many occasions these general powers have been used to recover, for example, national insurance benefits. Secondly, who has the discretion? Does the Supplementary Benefits Commission have discretion? Thirdly, does the hon. Gentleman assume that this method of recovery would be used

only as a last resort and that it would be used extremely sparingly as it is under the present system?

Mr. Dean: Yes, as the hon. Gentleman knows from his experience in my Department, this is very much a reserve power which is used extremely sparingly and is never used within the discretion which is available so as to cause hardship to the families concerned. The answer is that it is on a few occasions and never so as seriously to embarrass the family concerned. In the light of what I have said, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel, that it would be undesirable to open the gate to abuse by having available no power of recovery.

Amendment negatived.

It being Ten o'clock, further consideration of the Bill, as amended, stood adjourned.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That the proceedings on the Family Income Supplements Bill, on the Contingencies Fund Bill and on the Town and Country Planning Regulations (London) (Indemnity) Bill may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed.—[Mr. Weatherill.]

FAMILY INCOME SUPPLEMENTS BILL

Bill, as amended (in the Committee), further considered.

Clause 10

REGULATIONS

Mr. Meacher: I beg to move Amendment No. 21, in page 5, line 3, at end insert:
(k) for prescribing that any claimant or recipient of family income supplement who makes an appeal to the Appeal Tribunal against any determination of the Supplementary Benefits Commission under this Act shall be informed of his right to representation before the Tribunal.
My purpose in introducing this proposal is to achieve, by what I hope is a small concession, the aim that the regulations will substantially stiffen the meaningfulness of the appeals machinery. The present situation of appeals in regard to awarding social service benefits is most unsatisfactory. There is scarcely any


benefit for which a system of appeals is provided where the proportion of those affected who avail themselves of this opportunity is not nugatory. This is particularly so with non-contributory benefits and cases in which there is a substantial element of discretion.
This is true, not merely of disputes concerning the positive level of benefit—whether it be more or less than a particular sum—but even where benefit is being terminated and where possibly severe hardship or temporarily acute deprivation may ensue. I am thinking, for example, of the operation of the four-week rule which curtails supplementary benefits for both single and married men after four weeks or three months' warning, as a result of which no other benefits at all may be available, yet the level of appeal is around a minute 3 per cent.
These figures may be interpreted as a symbol of the considered justice meted out by the various relevant authorities. Although I would not entirely discount the accuracy of such an argument, nevertheless I believe there are several other crucial considerations. Perhaps the most important of these is the matter of client representation. In the matter of fair rents, for instance, there could be no doubt that a central reason for the reluctance of tenants to use the rent-fixing machinery is their inability to match the legal expertise employed by landlords when an appeal is made to an assessment committee. Under the Rent Act tenants wishing to query a rent officer's assessment can call on more articulate friends to argue the case for them, but—and this is the point of this Amendment—this provision is not well-publicised and regrettably is little used.
The proper and complete answer to this problem would be the provision of legal aid for the use of appellants at tribunals concerned with social benefits and social rights; but, in the absence of that full answer, I would ask that the regulations should stipulate that appellants be informed, at least orally but preferably also in writing, that they are entitled to representation and support at the hearing by persons of their choice, whether by a friend, a relation, or a voluntary agent such as a trade union district secretary, or the member of a voluntary organisation committed to the defence of the rights of

the poor, such as the Child Poverty Action Group, or a claimant's union.
The importance of this provision could be shown by the fact that where appeals have taken place before tribunals and appellants have been properly represented, the number of successful appeals has risen markedly and the ultimate terms of settlement in the dispute have improved significantly, to the claimant's advantage.
Yet nevertheless all too often claimants have been extremely unwilling to go through with this proposal and have been unnerved by the prospect of the hearing, and only persuaded to accept the services of an articulate friend with considerable trepidation. Such is the importance of ensuring that this crucial aid to the claimant which the Amendment requires does not go by default.
I trust that the Minister will not take my eulogies of the benefits of representation to the claimant as, frankly, a reason for quietly blocking them. It is not enough to make the opportunity for representation available. Its existence must be positively announced and actively encouraged. I believe that it is a test of the Minister's commitment to the rights of the poor that he improve in this way the balance of power between the authorities and the claimant, which at present is far too heavily weighted in the interests of the former.

Mr. Dean: The hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) was successful in an Amendment which he moved on the Committee stage, and on this occasion I can tell him that he is pushing at a door which is already open. The power to which he has referred is already available and, therefore, the Amendment is unnecessary. It is available in Schedule 3 to the Ministry of Social Security Act. In supplementary benefits cases the practice is that when the applicant is notified of the date, time and place of the hearing, he is also told that he may be represented. It is our intention that a similar practice will be followed in respect of FIS appeals.
As the hon. Gentleman has drawn attention to this matter and has mentioned the need for publicity of these arrangements, the fact that this short debate has taken place will perhaps


achieve his objective. I hope that I have convinced the hon. Gentleman and the House that what he desires is already available and will be carried out.

Amendment negatived.

Mr. Booth: I beg to move Amendment No. 22, in page 5, line 3, at end insert:
(k) for the payment of family income supplement for six weeks to a seasonal worker on the evidence of his first week's earnings in a period of employment, without prejudice to his entitlement to a further twenty weeks' payments at a rate which shall not be affected by any change in circumstances in that period on his showing evidence of five continuous weeks' earnings.
The purpose of the Amendment is to make a special provision for family income supplements payments to seasonal workers. Although not stated in the Bill, we understand that the practice to be adopted in making normal F.I.S. payment calculations will be to take an average of five weeks' income to determine the average income of an applicant. We understand the reason for this, because there may be many applicants whose incomes vary from week to week and it would not, therefore, be fair to work on a single week's earnings. However, if this form of determination were applied to seasonal workers, some special difficulties would arise, which the Minister would recognise.
The Minister will correct me if I am wrong in assuming that his understanding of the words "seasonal workers" in the context of the Amendment is the same as the use of the term "seasonal worker" for unemployment benefit purposes. Hon. Members will readily agree that the general understanding of the term "seasonal worker" by constituents is different from that used for National Insurance definitions. Most people think of seasonal workers as those who work at a seaside hotel in the summer. For National Insurance purposes, anybody who establishes a pattern of periods of employment over a three-year period is classed as a seasonal worker and, consequently, will not be entitled to receive unemployment benefit.
There is a complication in that there is a process of appeal whereby, if he can show that he may have obtained employment for 25 per cent. of the time, or

does, he can qualify for benefit. However, if a seasonal worker, having been out of work for a period similar to periods in two previous years, then comes back into employment and within the first week seeks to claim family income supplement, one cannot determine on the basis of the four preceding weeks and that week what an average week's earnings are for the purpose of family income supplement, and therefore it is necessary to make provision for this type of worker.
One of the areas to which this would have to extend is that of local education authorities, where some grades of employees are paid only in respect of periods when schools are in session. They are not paid during school holidays. Some of them have experienced difficulty as a result of being classed as seasonal workers after a three-year period, and I am particularly concerned to safeguard their position for family income supplement purposes.
Finally, perhaps I might point out that this was the method suggested by the Minister in Committee. Therefore I hope that it needs no further commendation to the right hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Meacher: I take an opportunity to speak on this Amendment about seasonal workers with a special eye to the further point made in the other Amendment. In the absence of Government Amendments, many hon. Members on this side of the House are disturbed about the degree of leeway in the application of this Bill which will be left to regulations and on which reassurances of intention have been sought from the Government and on many points not yet granted.
When we discussed Clause 6 in Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) referred to the disturbingly wide range of discretion which in some part at least will be met by the regulations. But as regards the precise formulation of the regulations, we have received little definite guidance and reassurance in detail on several important points of principle and policy.
We have been given little information on the essential question of how claims to family income supplement are to be dealt with and met. Will applicants be entitled, for example, to a notice of assessment showing how the benefit has been


made up, since the basing of the calculation on gross family earnings is more likely to be open to dispute and differences of interpretation than is the case with supplementary benefit claims where the relationship of past earnings to the scale rates is simpler to determine?
Again, taking a matter which relates to the problems of seasonal work, in what form will evidence of past family income have to be produced? I am aware that the question of past earnings is already covered by the Secretary of State's comments on 13th November about a wages slip. I raise this point because I know of a case where an applicant for free welfare foods jotted down on a piece of paper details of past family income and was told that that was completely inadequate and that he would have to provide an audited certificate from his accounttant. One would think that a person who boasted an accountant would be unlikely to be claiming free welfare foods. The point is that we have had little information about how the regulations will work with respect to such issues in general and seasonal workers in particular.
A further matter concerning the application of the Bill to seasonal workers derives from a Written Reply of the Secretary of State on 13th November in which he said:
… where the rate is 10s. a week or less the supplement will be paid quarterly in advance by Giro order."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 283.]
10.15 p.m.
Suppose that a seasonal worker is awarded 10s. a week and then, having received an advance payment of £6 10s., becomes unemployed in the course of the next 13 weeks. Does this lump sum payment either preclude or diminish his supplementary benefit entitlement? If so, in what way, by how much, and for which weeks? I urge the Minister to give us an assurance about the effect on benefit levels of the interplay between supplementary benefits and F.I.S. with particular regard to seasonal workers.
The purpose of the Amendment is to discover exactly how the Government propose to treat applications from seasonal workers where in the five weeks, or two months in the case of salaried persons, immediately preceding the claim seasonal work has tailed off and that person has become temporarily unemployed.

All that we have been told by the Secretary of State comes from a further Written Answer on 13th November:
Where, for example, the person concerned … was in a job in which the earnings varied with the seasons, or was temporarily working short-time, it would normally"—
what a multitude of sins hide behind the word "normally"—
be appropriate to have regard to a shorter or a longer period than the five weeks (two months) norm."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 13th November, 1970; Vol. 806, c. 284–5.]
Will the Minister be more explicit? Will he make clear that the regulations will require that reference will be made to the latest period of work when employment was carried on continuously for five weeks, or for two months in the case of salaried persons? On this and related matters associated with seasonal workers, I ask the Minister to fully clarify the rights of seasonal workers under the Bill.

Mr. Dean: The hon. Members for Barrow-in-Furness (Mr. Booth) and for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) have asked us to write into the Bill something which we broadly intend to achieve by the more flexible method of regulations. The intention here is broadly the same for the seasonal worker as for the person who is unemployed or in receipt for a short period of a national insurance benefit, which is primarily the point raised by the hon. Member for Oldham, West. The broad intention is the same in both cases—to determine the claimant's normal earnings for full-time employment which would make him eligible to claim the family income supplement.
For example, in the case of a man who was unemployed for a period, it is our intention that the period should be the average over the last five weeks, ignoring weeks in which less than 30 hours were worked. The broad objective concerning seasonal workers is that the family income supplement payable would correspond to the normal earnings of the claimant for full-time work which makes him eligible.
It may be that in the case of someone just beginning work or taking a new job an initial award would be made for a short period and a further award later when the pattern of his earnings was established. There may be cases—change of work and all the rest—where it would not be possible to establish what the


normal pattern of earnings was by looking at the previous five weeks. So common sense would suggest, and we intend to provide regulations, that there should be an initial award until the pattern of normal earnings for full-time work was established. That is the way that we propose to cover those cases.
In the other instances mentioned by the hon. Member for Oldham, West, it is our intention that regulations should provide that normal gross income consisting of earnings will be calculated or estimated from the person's earnings from that occupation over the five complete weeks preceding the claim. However, as I have mentioned, this can be no more than a general rule, and it would be relevant only where the previous five weeks were an accurate assessment of the period and of the earnings concerned.
The Department has fairly considerable National Insurance experience of this matter with seasonal workers and with unemployment, and the general pattern

which has been followed will be useful experience in guiding us. The basic objective which we intend to achieve is to take a period which will show as accurately as possible what the normal earnings in full-time work are in the job concerned. In the majority of cases we envisage that the previous five weeks will give an accurate picture of that, but for a person starting a new job, or a seasonal worker, it may not, and we shall therefore provide in the regulations for other periods to be taken, in order to be able to make an accurate assessment of what the normal full-time earnings are for the person concerned in the job concerned.
I hope that with that explanation the two hon. Gentlemen opposite will feel that the broad intention which they have attempted to express in these Amendments, and which is shared by the Government, would be better carried out with the greater flexibility which regulation-making powers will provide.

Amendment negatived.

10.21 p.m.

Sir K. Joseph: I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I am grateful and wish to express my gratitude to the House for improving the Bill with such good temper, and in such rapid time. My hon. Friends have given me the priceless support of co-operative silence, except for the 100 per cent. speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter), who made only one speech and scored a bull's-eye by persuading the Government to accept an Amendment put forward by the Opposition.
I should like to congratulate the Opposition on the quality of their homework. This is not as simple a Bill as it appears at first sight. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have penetrated a lot of its complexities, and have obliged the Government to study some of the details which, at least on the benches within the House, if not on the silent benches outside it, had not been fully appreciated.
The Opposition do not like the Bill, though they share with us the purpose behind it, which is to bring help as rapidly as possible to the poorest wage-earning households with a child or children. The Government's purpose has been to provide this help as quickly as possible, and this has meant that we have had to ask the House to accept a simplicity which has not always been able to absorb the detailed claims of equity which hon. Members have put forward. I have assured the House that as soon as the family incomes supplement has been in payment for about a year we shall be ready to look, if necessary, at some of the refinements that we have had to reject at this stage.
Because the Bill has had to be brought in quickly, I should like to say how much I, personally, appreciate the hard work that my civil servants have put into the drafting and thought of it.
As a result of the objective of speed, the House has been asked to accept an unusually large amount of regulation powers. I apologise for this, but I know that the House will sympathise with the purpose. I hope the House will appreciate that the Government have made

every effort to explain what we intend to put into regulations, by filling HANSARD with Written Answers to Parliamentary Questions, as a result of which I think these debates have been the better.
Anyone straying into our Committee stage and today's Report stage would have imagined that we were dealing largely with the plight of the actor who was unemployed and turning his hand, for just over 30 hours a week, to window cleaning, while facing severe problems of either fostering out or fostering in one or two children.
In fact, despite any such impression, the vast majority of cases that we intend to help under the Bill will be simple, straightforward cases of very poor families indeed, working full-time and trying to bring up children to reasonable standards. There will be less simple cases, but we believe that the Bill, with the regulations that will follow, will cope with them and channel the help that we intend to give to them. I again assure the House that we shall be watching the prescribed amounts which set a ceiling to the help that we can give.
This is the second Bill for which I have had the honour to ask the House for a Third Reading in only ten parliamentary weeks since the election. I am grateful to the House for the improvement that the Bill has experienced at its hands and I hope that the House will now speed the Bill on its way.

10.25 p.m.

Mr. McNamara: I do not intend to delay the House for long. The right hon. Gentleman allows that the Opposition do not like the Bill, but the phrases he used gave the impression that we went along with it. I do not go along with it. I regard it as a poor Bill—a dismal Bill—that will do little to help the very poor, and particularly those who are on the margins just outside the limits laid down in the Bill. It will do nothing to help people with very large families, or those who have rent problems. It will do nothing to help the many cases that exist all along the margins of whatever lines we draw—in particular, those on the margin between the full supplementary benefits and the benefits to be provided under this scheme. It is a very poor Bill from that point of view.
I realise that the right hon. Gentleman wanted to get the Bill through as quickly as possible, and to that extent I applaud him. Some disregards have been accepted and others rejected. The arguments for accepting some were equally applicable to the arguments for accepting others, and the arguments for rejecting some could have applied to the arguments for rejecting others. I am grateful for the concessions that the right hon. Gentleman has made, but the Bill is a very poor substitute for what we wanted.
The right hon. Gentleman is creating another means test and another level of poverty, which is something that we had hoped we might avoid in this Measure. The right hon. Gentleman did not deal with the problem of rent, although we all know that rent problems—more than ever now, because we have so many Tory dominated councils—provide a major problem in this area of poverty. That situation is not touched by the provisions in the Bill.
The right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends have said, "A new scheme will be produced by the Secretary of State for the Environment in the autumn" but the autumn is nearly 12 months away, and many people will be badly affected while they are waiting for that new scheme to come into operation. Having seen some of the standards set by Tory councils, it is clear to me that this situation does not bode well for the really poor.
The Parliamentary Secretary and the right hon. Gentleman were for ever saying, "This is a new Bill. This is a new departure. We are going into new and uncharted seas." My fear is that we are going into uncharted seas in a very leaky craft.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. Charles Curran: The Bill is a stopgap, ambulance measure. Nobody on either side of the House would wish to overstate the benefits to be derived from it. But although it is a stopgap, ambulance job, it is valuable because it provides real help for strata of our society which are in urgent need. Instead of criticising it we should welcome it, as far as it goes.
However, there are a number of things which need to be pointed out about the Bill. I very much hope that after the

Bill has been working for a while we shall have from the Minister a report about the way it is working. I was interested to hear one hon. Member opposite pressing for an annual report. I recognise that there are objections to the demand as it was made. However, the working of the Bill will tell us a good deal that we do not know. It will give us a good deal of exact information which we do not have now about the hard cases in society. The more information that we can get the better for us.
To a large extent we are talking in the dark. We make assumptions about the facts without knowing them. I hope that when the Minister gives us a report upon the workings of the Bill when enacted he will systematically accumulate all the information he can about the families that are helped, what sort of income they have, what their circumstances are, how numerous they are, in what parts of the country they are, and in what occupations they are.
One cannot do more than guess about this, but from my necessarily limited experience of one constituency I am inclined to guess that the principal beneficiaries under the Bill will be single mothers—that is, women who are bringing up families without husbands, some women who have been deserted, women who are widows or women who have illegitimate children. So far as I can see, these single mothers are the most to be pitied people in the community. The job of bringing up a family and at the same time earning a living for it is beyond the capacity of a woman unless she is above average. It is an extraordinarily difficult job. One continually comes across women who find it pretty well impossible to cope with the double business of bringing up children and at the same time earning a living for them single-handed.
The Bill will do something for these women. One would like to know how many such women there are. From my experience of them—I have encountered quite a number of them, as I imagine every hon. Member has—they are people who are the victims of circumstances over which they have had little or no control. They are often women who are not particularly bright, women who have not been particularly well educated, women who have not been trained to do any job for which an employer is prepared to pay


much money. They are constantly struggling.
When the Minister gives us the report I hope that he will examine, among many other things, the way in which the Bill when enacted affects the levels of women's wages. I wonder—I am not sure of it; I suppose nobody can be—whether the Bill will not tend to depress the wages of such women, whether we are not now providing a subsidy which will tend to keep down perhaps at a lower level than at present the wages of the women I am talking about—unskilled women who are struggling to bring up a family and at the same time support them.
I said that the Bill is a stopgap ambulance job. I do not criticise it for that reason. I insist that it simply makes an attempt to cope with problems which we always shrink from tackling properly. We keep on legislating about welfare. We are doing it now. We have been doing it ever since the war. We do it on an assumption which we all know not to be true, the assumption that everybody of voting age is competent to cope, to stand on his own feet—or her own feet—and to accept the burden of personal responsibility.
The truth is that there are in our society a sizeable number of men and women who are not equal to doing that, who really find it beyond them. I fancy that there is something to be said—I think that we shall one day have to face this—for accepting the facts, for recognising that there are men and women who do not find it possible to cope, whether because of faults of personality, faults of education, lack of training, or whatever it may be. To thrust upon such people the burden of looking after themselves, pretending that they are equal to the job when, in fact, they are not, is, in my view, a piece of cruelty.
I believe that we shall presently have to face the question whether we should recognise the existence in our society of a sizeable number of people who are simply unable to look after themselves and who need something in the nature of benevolent paternalism. The Welfare State may have to come to that.
We are not doing it in the present Bill. We are passing the Bill on the familiar assumption that people can look after themselves, that everyone can, including

the women I am talking about, the ones who are trying single-handed to bring up their families and provide a living for them at the same time.
We cannot indefinitely run our society without challenging that assumption. It may well be—perhaps I am here going outside the scope of the Bill itself—that it would be socially better if we were to treat the single mothers of whom I am speaking in a completely different way, so that, instead of subsidising their wages we paid them outright to stay at home to look after their children.
That is not what the Bill is about. The Bill is based upon the assumption, which is often wrong, that such women, the ones who, I believe, will be the principal beneficiaries, are invariably capable of doing the job when, in fact, very many of them are not.

Sir K. Joseph: My hon. Friend is making an interesting speech, but he is in error in the last point he makes. A single women bringing up a child or children can draw supplementary benefit in order to stay at home. Under the Bill, there is a choice.

Mr. Curran: I agree, and I am, perhaps, taking the generalisation further than I should. But there is a certain group of single mothers who will have their wages supplemented under the Bill. We shall subsidise the wages of some of them. I believe that it would be socially better if, instead of subsidising their wages, we gave them public money outright so that they might look after their children and be relieved of the business of earning a living to support their families. To do that would be to go a good deal further than the Bill. I hope that we shall nevertheless face that question when we make the radical overhaul of the Welfare State which, I hope, the present Government will make before the next election. Meanwhile, I am happy to welcome the Bill, so far as it goes.

10.40 p.m.

Mr. Michael Barnes: During the Second Reading debate the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell) compared this Bill with what he called the Speenhamland decision, which the Speenhamland magistrates took in 1795. There would be few hon. Members on this side


of the House who would accept that this Bill is a fateful decision in that sense simply because it seeks to supplement the wages of people in full-time employment. There may be many on this side of the House who think that this Bill is equally as fateful a step for another reason.
That reason is that the Bill is the first piece of legislation that this Government have brought forward involving the extension of crude means testing on which the Government will clearly rely so heavily in the social legislation that they are gradually unveiling. I do not complain at the selectivity involved in Clauses 5 and 6 of the Bill, with the claims and determinations that have to be made, what I complain about is the crudity of the selectivity. If this scheme is to be operated by the Supplementary Benefits Commission I remain convinced that the take-up of benefits will continue as low as it is for many other means-tested benefits.
On the other hand, I believe that the Government will find that resentment towards the scheme will be high. It will be high among those who receive benefit and there will be resentment among other sections of society towards those who receive the benefit. This resentment will become greater as the Government adopt other policies which rely more and more on this kind of crude means testing. The 50 per cent. rate of tax on earnings up to the prescribed amount, in Clause 3, makes the scheme in many respects like a form of negative taxation. But the scheme is so crude and the benefits so meagre that this Bill will bring negative income tax into disrepute. It will bring the sort of civilised selectivity that can be possible through negative income tax into disrepute, and I fancy there are quite a few hon. Members on both sides who would regard this as a pity. Those are the reasons why the Bill is a fateful step. I do not think it will be in the long-term interests of poor families any more than was the Speenhamland scheme. I do not think it will take us one step nearer the concept of one nation which is so much spoken of nowadays. I believe that the reverse will be the case and that it will isolate and weaken the poor and increase the amount of resentment felt towards them by other sections of society.

10.43 p.m.

Dame Joan Vickers: My right hon. Friend rather tempted us too much when he said that we on these Benches were being silent. I am in a slightly difficult position because, regretfully, I was not in the House at the time this Bill was brought forward. I want to voice one or two criticisms and perhaps express some fears about the Bill. One of the difficulties is that my right hon. Friend has such a delightful way of putting his points that he rather disarms any criticism.
I hope he will give us some assurance that he is considering this as only a holding Bill, a temporary Bill until he can find something else to put in its place, and that he has to do this because he needs to do something quickly. I am worried about the fact that we shall violate again the privacy of the family. We have so many different ways of doing this now. We shall have to learn more about the individual family. We read in Clause 5 (2):
Where a family includes both a man and a woman the claim shall, except where regulations otherwise provide, be made by them jointly and any sums payable by way of the supplement shall be receivable by either of them; in any other case the claim shall be made and the sums shall be receivable by the man or woman included in the family.
I think that this is rather dangerous. What happens if a woman wants to see why she is not getting an adequate income? We know that a great many husbands do not tell their wives what they earn. In Holland a woman can go to the court and get a sufficient income from her husband if he does not give it to her.
I hope that one of the innovations my right hon. Friend will put into effect will be that this should not be jointly done, but that either should have the right to claim.
I tabled a Question, as I was overseas, about the number of my constituents who might benefit from the Bill. I was told that it was not possible to provide estimates of an area smaller than Great Britain. This makes me a little doubtful about the estimates we were given on 10th November in that there may be a great many disappointments in the area among people who thought they might be


included. I hope that at least it will be possible to help the local officers who are to deal with this matter by giving them some idea of the numbers involved.
One of my hon. Friends said that the Bill is based on speculation. I did not like that word, but perhaps he did not mean it. It seems a rather dangerous idea that the Bill should be based on speculation. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston-upon-Thames (Mr. Boyd-Carpenter) in what he said on Second Reading—that family allowances have three great merits. He proceeded to state those three merits with his usual great clarity.
I wonder whether we are wise in embarking on this type of Bill at the present time when we are considering going into the Common Market, because it is going in the opposite direction to action being taken by Common Market countries. I hope, therefore, that it is only to be a holding operation until perhaps the economic situation is better and we can afford to go along the lines of the countries of the Common Market, because if we are to join the E.E.C. it will be awkward for us to have one system and the other countries to have another. I would much prefer to see larger allowances given so that the individual can pay for all the necessities his family needs than that we should go on supplementing just the poorer.
In France, for example, the child allowance is £6 12s. for the first child and for three children it is £23, whereas in this country there is nothing for the first child and only £6 18s. 8d. for three. I think that the Government will have to come to some such system as the French in the end, and it will be very much better when they do. We spend less than any of the countries of the Common Market on social security and this is something we have to face. We have to decide what proportion of our gross national product we are going to spend on social security and welfare.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Miss Harvie Anderson): Order. I appreciate that the hon. Lady has explained to the House that she was not here at an earlier stage, but I hope she will not stretch the rules for Third Reading too widely.

Dame Joan Vickers: I will leave that point, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
The other point I would like to draw to the attention of my right hon. Friend over my dislike or fear of the Bill concerns the areas of low wages. In my part of the country, the wages are considerably lower than the national average. Only recently, in a local newspaper there was the headline,
Don't pay so much to West workers".
That statement was supposed to have come from the Department of Employment. I therefore checked with the Department and found that it was not what it had said. But it is one of my fears that we shall now see low wages maintained because it is thought that they can be supplemented by the Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) said that the level of women's wages may be kept down because many firms will profit by this scheme.
In his reply to me, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, Department of Employment, said that the Department had not instigated any scaling down of wages proposed to be paid by a firm in the South-West and added:
The Department thought the firm's own assessment of the likely effects of its original ideas on wages was realistic and agreed to provide the firm with certain information on national and district wages rates.
We do not want any scaling down of wage rates from a firm moving into an area where there are already low wages, but that aim is unfortunately not helped by the Bill. I would much sooner that this were regarded as a holding Bill until the whole subject can be reviewed in the light of greater knowledge. Families will have to apply for these benefits, for rate rebate, rent rebate, prescription rebate and so on. This will be an intolerable burden for many families and a great intrusion into their privacy.
My right hon. Friend already knows that I am critical of the Bill, for I wrote to the Chief Whip to explain my position when I was unable to speak during the Second Reading debate. I hope that the time will soon come when he is able to produce a better Bill which is more satisfactory for helping the kind of person with whom we are concerned and which will enable us to do away with these various tests.

10.51 p.m.

Mr. Timothy Raison: This is a small but useful Bill and what I have to say will be short. I believe that it will give limited help to a group of people who are clearly in need, particularly the families of single women. During our debates my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has shown considerable willingness to improve the Bill by Amendments and by what he has indicated as the likely content of the regulations.
On the face of it, there are too many regulations and we have to depend upon them too much, but we probably have to accept the need for speed, and we can be sure of the good will of the Secretary of State and I am sure that when he has the chance to err on the side of generosity, he will do so.
If I had to make a comparison in describing the Bill it would be to say that it is similar to the post-war prefabs, which were built to ease the immediate housing shortage. The trouble about the prefabs was that they had a way of lasting far longer than we expected. I hope that the Bill will not be a permanent feature of the Statute Book.

Sir K. Joseph: Prefabs became very popular.

Mr. Raison: Any cash allowance will necessarily be very popular, but that does not persuade me that in the long run it is the best possible form of allowance.
What we have called the Speenhamland objection may be valid in principle, but it will not apply seriously in practice. The system of getting only 50 per cent. of the difference rather than the whole difference between one's income and the prescribed amount will probably mean that the deterrent effect on wages will not work and in reality it will not be a substantial problem.
What I do not feel happy about is that the Bill will add one more to the great tangle of means tests and the great variety of benefits which is a feature of our social security scene already. While the Bill will be useful in the short run, I hope that in the long run our thinking will be directed back towards one single benefit for each of the major contingencies which may arise within the social services. Whether we build on the family allowances is an open question, but the

more we can think in terms of a single benefit and a single system of means testing, the better for all concerned, and I hope that when my right hon. Friend and his colleagues discuss the future of social security, they will be able to give some indication that this is the way in which they are thinking.
I know that the problem of the noncopers is real and that if we concentrate on cash benefit to the exclusion of all other kinds of benefits, subsidies for school meals and benefits in kind, we may run into problems, but even these may not necessarily be insuperable problems. If there were a single benefit, it might be possible to have at least part of the benefit in some kind of coupon form, or some other form tied to the need.
I am sure that what we need is much more simplicity in the whole of this subject. While the Bill will give us a useful benefit with useful consequences in the short term, I hope that it will not be regarded as a permanent feature of the scene.

10.55 p.m.

Sir Brandon Rhys Williams: I do not want to detain the House very long at this late hour.
I was not able to give the Bill a very warm welcome on Second Reading, and I cannot give it a very warm welcome at this stage. It seems to have very few friends anywhere in the House. But it is obvious from this evening's deliberations that it also has no real enemies. I think that this is in very large measure due to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, because he has convinced all hon. Members of his absolute sincerity and generosity of purpose in introducing it.
One of my favourite observations, which it is perhaps appropriate to repeat now, is that a man who never made a mistake never made anything. I think my right hon. Friend has made a mistake in introducing the Bill, but it is a mistake which will take him in due course in the right direction.
I pay tribute to the way in which the Opposition has handled the Committee and Report stages. In spite of their best efforts, the Bill still contains features which are objectionable. The dependence on regulations to be issued subsequently is, I suppose, the most objectionable now.
But it also has all the disincentive difficulties which we foresaw on Second Reading; and there is also the problem of the six-month rule. Whichever way we look at it, that rule is wrong. The period is either too long or too short. On balance, I am inclined to think that it will be seen in retrospect to be too short. The income tax on marginal earnings rather than the partial withdrawal of benefits should be the instrument for introducing an acceptable degree of selectivity. The benefits which the Bill confers should become permanent. They should not be limited to six months in duration. The variations in income which inevitably affect all families should be dealt with through the income tax rather than through the means test.
I believe that my right hon. Friend will learn from his mistakes. Those of us who are students of this subject will watch him now with a sort of enjoyment, rather as one reads through an old and much-loved story, because we know already the obstacles this pilgrim will come to. We know that my right hon. Friend's heart is in the right place, as is that of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, so we are confident that they will be able to bridge all these difficulties in style. We shall see them, rather like the pilgrims in "The Pilgrim's Progress" in the Slough of Despond as they try to draft regulations which actually express what they mean. We shall see them on the Hill of Difficulty as they try to wrestle with the problem of disincentives; and in the Castle of Despair when they try to deal with the problem of low take-up. I am certain that take-up will not be as high as my right hon. Friend hopes.
But we can have confidence that in due course he will come to the river and that the trumpets will sound for him on the other side. Eventually he will come to the place where other blessed spirits rest, and will convince himself that the right way to have dealt with this problem all along was by a straight increase in family allowances.

10.58 p.m.

Mrs. Shirley Williams: While I share with the hon. Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams) the certainty that the trumpets will sound at least on the other side for the Secretary of State, with all that that implies in this House, I am not so sure that they

will sound on either side for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whom I regard as the inspiration of the Bill.
The Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary have been extremely patient. They have made a number of concessions and have been characteristically open-minded in recognising places where they could strengthen their Bill. Granted that they have almost as many mentors on their side of the House as on this who are singularly unhappy about the Bill, that graciousness also had a quality of diplomacy in it. At one stage it looked as though the right hon. Gentleman was beginning to regret his willingness to make concessions, and made, I thought, a rather unhappy remark about the distressingly seductive initiatives from the Opposition. However, I should like to assure him that some seductions are good for everybody, and this one is such an an example.
I want briefly to refer to some of the worries which we have about the Bill, and then to one or two wider questions which arise from it. We have made clear already that we have three central concerns. The first of those is the dependence of the Bill upon regulations, and which, even now, we cannot exactly determine. The right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend are both honourable men, and while they are in office we can, no doubt, trust them completely to carry out all that they have said, but all of us in this House know that Ministerial office has a strange way of moving from person to person; all of us know perfectly well that a commitment made by one gentleman may not necessarily be taken to apply to the next one; all of us know that when we make law we should make law for all time and not for the sojourn of one person in particular in one office in particular.
Having said that, while one reiterates once again that we recognise that the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Gentleman have been motivated by the desire for speed, we in the Opposition, and many on the Government side, too, I hope, still maintain a deep scepticism about the way the Bill depends to such an extent on means which cannot be controlled within the House of Commons. I want also to say, without, I hope, rubbing to much salt in the wound, that we all know that the speed was


itself the direct consequence of the action of the right hon. Gentleman's colleague in introducing the changes he made last 27th October, and that such speed would not have been necessary had those steps not been taken.
Our second great worry, our second sense of the deep weakness of the Bill, quite apart from this concept, is that despite the efforts to offset it, the Bill still retains the £3 limit, and so in effect what the Bill says is, "You can get half a loaf if you are rather poor, and you will be lucky to get a quarter of a loaf if you are very poor."
The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) quite correctly pointed to one group of people who are likely to benefit from the Bill, and those were women. It is perhaps worth pointing out to the House that the most recent Family Expenditure Survey which we have, and earnings survey we have, indicated that there were still in this country 2·2 million women over 21 earning less than £12 a week. In other words, the most depressed, the least well organised, the least powerfully organised group of people in the country are women still, and one is aware that it is among them that the £3 limit is likely to hit most hard. So I would say that our concern about the £3 limit continuing in the Bill remains, and we cannot talk about equity in a situation in which the very poorest are to have to bear it, for reasons which, I am bound to say, I thought that, with all his great charm, the Under-Secretary of State did not manage to mobilise, because the necessary troops were not there; and so we still have not an adequate answer to this strange limit upon the very poor.
Our third great concern which we still feel is at the disincentive effect of the Bill, and the fact that we talk loosely in this House about 50 per cent., the disincentive effect that for every £1 a man or woman earns he or she will lose 50 per cent. in respect of lost family income supplement. The position is more serious than that, because to that one must add National Insurance contributions and working expenses, except in the case of a husband, and so the disincentive is, undoubtedly, more logically put at between 60 and 65 per cent. in most cases. This is a fantastic level of taxation, and we have to recognise, if we have any logic,

that a level of taxation that high will be as effective in putting those who are poor off work as it is often argued by hon. Gentlemen opposite it is in the case of those who are well off.
In conclusion, as the right hon. Gentleman recognises, we on the Opposition side do not like this Bill. We do not like it because we fear that it may be a portentous Bill, for the reasons which my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr. Barnes) put so eloquently and for reasons which the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) advanced.
Because we could so easily be facing the crossroads in the way in which we deal with poverty, we might fail to recognise that this is at best a crutch which can keep the poor just walking but no radical solution to the problem of poverty. Such a radical solution would not try to tackle poverty by making a small contribution to the poor; it would try to do it, as the hon. Member for Kensington, South, and we on this side of the House suggested, by tackling direct the problem of oppressively low wages through minimum earnings, through minimum allowances—

Mr. Speaker: Order. On Third Reading we can discuss only what is in the Bill.

Mrs. Williams: I am sorry, Mr. Speaker. I thought that others had touched on that point. I will return to what is in the Bill.
We feel that the Bill as it is drafted is essentially, as the hon. Member for Uxbridge put it, a stop-gap ambulance measure. We on this side have always believed that it is not so much an accident service as a national health service that we want to deal with poverty.

11.6 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Security (Mr. Paul Dean): I thank the hon. Lady the Member for Hitchin (Mrs. Shirley Williams) for her kind remarks about my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and myself and for her help on the Bill. I thank my hon. Friends for the help which we have received from them. As a result of our debates, there is no doubt that the Bill has been improved, and we have had substantial help from the informed comments


made on both sides of the House in connection with the regulations which will be made under the Bill and in the eventual working of the Bill.
My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dame Joan Vickers) hoped that this would be a temporary, holding Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) talked about it being a "prefab" Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir B. Rhys Williams), in his usual charming way, said that it was a bad Bill but that at least we were moving in the right direction. I assure my hon. Friends that we have in this Bill another instrument to add to the instruments already available to us to deal with family poverty. There is the family allowance and the child tax allowance, and there will shortly be the new rent allowance to be introduced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Environment. By the interaction of these measures we shall, we hope, find an effective solution to the problem of family poverty. The fact that the scheme has been introduced does not necessarily mean that this is the only or the right answer. It is a speedy, effective contribution to the problem which we all want to see solved, but it does not rule out the other channels open to us.
My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), whom we are all delighted to see back in social security debates, said quite rightly that we shall learn much about family poverty from the working of the Bill. It is far more effective to introduce action of this kind to learn about a problem than to set up a committee or a research project. We shall learn in a short time about the problems of family poverty by the operation of the Bill.
Reference has been made to women. We shall watch the effect which the Bill may have on wages and earnings generally. The Speenhamland argument has been used. We do not believe that in modern conditions the Bill is likely to depress wages. What is certain is that it will substantially improve the incomes of some of the poorest families.
The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Mr. McNamara) has made some most helpful comments which we have undertaken to consider. The hon. Member for Brentford and Chiswick (Mr.
Barnes) tried to draw a distinction between civilised selectivity, which he sees in a negative income tax arrangement, and what he thought was a blunt instrument in this vehicle, and my hon. Friend for Kensington, South made a similar point. The solution to many of the problems of a negative income tax arrangement, such as the definition of earnings and the like, could well be tried out in this scheme. The scheme does not rule out hon. Members' favourite projects and, as a result of it, we may have a clearer indication as to the possibilities of a negative income tax scheme in the future.
We regard this as a first step in dealing with family poverty. It is highly selective in favour of the poorest families in the land in full-time work. It will bring highly effective help to one-parent families, to one-child families, who cannot be helped at present through family allowances, and to wage-stopped families. It is a first step in an unfolding social programme to which the Government are committed, and as such I commend it to the House.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

CONTINGENCIES FUND BILL

Not amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

TOWN AND COUNTRY PLANNING REGULATIONS (LONDON) (INDEMNITY) BILL

Considered in Committee; reported, without Amendment.

Motion made, and Question, That the Bill be now read the Third time, put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 55 (Third Reading), and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

FRENCH NEW POTATOES (ANTI-DUMPING DUTY)

11.14 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Nicholas Ridley): I beg to move,
That the Anti-Dumping Duty (No. 4) Order 1970 (S.I., 1970, No. 1641), dated 3rd November 1970, a copy of which was laid before this House on 6th November, be approved.
This Order, which was made under the Customs Duties (Dumping and Subsidies) Act 1969, imposes an anti-dumping duty of 10s. per cwt. on imports of new potatoes from France during the period 24th to 30th June 1970. I am glad to be able to demonstrate that the anti-dumping procedure does work. The National Farmers' Union and the Potato Marketing Board put in evidence on this subject as a result of which the Order has been laid.
The Order was made following our investigation into an application made by the British potato growers on 18th June for the imposition of anti-dumping duties on French new potatoes in which they also requested the immediate imposition of a provisional anti-dumping charge pending completion of the Department's investigation. After an urgent preliminary examination, we concluded that a prima facie case of materially injurious dumping had been made out and that it was necessary to impose a provisional charge to anti-dumping duty in view of the shortness of the season which, for French new potatoes, is virtually confined to the month of June. The charge of 10s. per cwt. imposed on 24th June represented our estimate of the margin of dumping on the basis of the information then available.
The laying of the provisional charge took only six days, which shows that the procedure can be made to work very quickly indeed. The charge was imposed initially for three months, but an Order was made when the initial three months expired extending the charge for another three months. This was done at the request of importers and exporters of French new potatoes to give them more time to present their case; and because, unless a definitive anti-dumping duty is imposed while the provisional charge is

in force, the charges collected must be refunded. This is the definitive duty Order that is before the House.
The investigation of the application established that practically all exports of French new potatoes to Britain during the greater part of June were dumped, and by margins mostly well in excess of 10s. per cwt. Evidence was obtained comparing the prices in London and in Paris and returns were obtained from the markets. We were satisfied that the effect of the dumping had been to reduce the prices obtained by British growers for new potatoes to a level substantially below that which they would otherwise have obtained, thereby causing them material injury. The imposition of the provisional anti-dumping charges remedied to a large extent this depression of prices on the British market, and there can be little doubt that, if this action had not been taken, the British growers would have suffered further material injury. In the event the price was depressed for about one week.
These findings relate, of course, solely to the 1970 season; we cannot predict what will be the conditions in 1971, but we have made it clear to both the British growers and the French exporters that we shall be ready to take prompt action if we have evidence of further materially injurious dumping next year.
The anti-dumping duty imposed under this Order relates solely to imports in the 1970 season. It is, as the Act requires, limited to the amount of the provisional charge of 10s. per cwt., which is now retained as anti-dumping duty. This works out at about 1d. per lb. on the price of new potatoes during the last week of June only. It applies only to imports made on and after the date on which the provisional charge came into operation, that is 24th June. The period for which the duty applies ends on 30th June because imports of French new potatoes are banned for plant health reasons after that date. We were satisfied that the imposition of this duty is in the national interest. I hope that the House will approve the Order.

Question put and agreed to.

DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF ORDER

11.19 p.m.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Patrick Jenkin): I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Netherlands Antilles) Order 1970 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 27th October.
The hour is late and I hope to deal with this Motion very briefly indeed. The Agreement is one of a long line of double taxation agreements which have been negotiated in the last three or four years and of which we debated over 40 in the last Parliament.
The Order extends to the Netherlands Antilles the main provisions of our Agreement with the Netherlands which was itself negotiated in 1967, was debated in this House on 11th December 1967, and came into force in April, 1968.
The old Agreement with the Netherlands Antilles was inappropriate in a few respects and, accordingly, the United Kingdom Government gave notice to terminate it in the middle of 1969 as from 5th April of this year. We immediately indicated that we would be prepared to negotiate a new Agreement and, by July of last year, an exchange of notes took place at the official level and the Agreement was reached.
This Agreement, therefore, was negotiated under our predecessors. Nevertheless, I can commend it to the House as being an appropriately renegotiated Agreement for double taxation relief.
If any hon. Member has any questions that he would like to raise on the Agreement, I shall be happy to try to answer them. But I doubt whether it is necessary at this late hour to take the House through the details of the Agreement.

Question put and agreed to

Resolved,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Netherlands Antilles) Order 1970 be made in the form of the draft laid before this House on 27th October.

To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

LAURIESTON HOSPITAL, CASTLE DOUGLAS

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Fortescue.]

11.21 p.m.

Mr. John Brewis: At this late hour, I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the question of Laurieston Hospital, Castle Douglas. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for being here to reply to the debate, and to my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) for being present on the Treasury Bench.
Laurieston Hospital is a small country house situated in beautiful surroundings some six miles from Castle Douglas, the largest town in the district, yet centrally placed for the wide Glenkens area which includes the town of New Galloway, Dalry, Carsphairn and many other villages.
Possibly the term "hospital" is a bit of a misnomer. Laurieston House is used for the care of old people who are not bedridden, but who need rather more attention than can conveniently be given in an eventide home. Because of its surroundings and the work of the matron and staff, it is an outstandingly happy place.
It will be readily agreed that such an atmosphere is an important item in the treatment of geriatric patients. It is also important that they should be accommodated as near as possible to their home area and thus able to receive visits from relatives, friends and younger members of their families. Here I join issue with the decision of the Western Regional Hospital Board made many years ago that geriatric patients from Galloway should be concentrated in Dumfries when the new General Hospital is completed in 1974. Concentration may be all very well in cities and large towns, but in rural areas it is bound to cause hardship and visiting difficulties when the catchment area may be up to 80 miles wide.
As I say, Laurieston was scheduled to close in 1974. I will be prepared to fight that issue nearer the time, but the immediate subject of tonight's debate is


the decision of the Regional Hospital Board to close Laurieston on 18th January, 1971, long before the new Dumfries Hospital is built. I might say in passing that I am glad to see my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfries (Mr. Monro) in his place.
Let me say in passing that a date in January in the depth of winter is an unfortunate if not inhuman time to move old people from the surroundings to which they are accustomed. Some are to go to Lochmaben, a town about 40 miles away but in a very different part of Scotland, another to Stranraer over 50 miles away. Such flittings, if they take place at all, should take place in summer.
I now come to the Department's case for closing Laurieston. The reasons were set out in a letter that the Under-Secretary of State wrote to me on 13th October. One of the points made by my hon. Friend is that, when a census was taken last August, many of the occupants were found not to be local people. From this he deduces that Laurieston is not convenient for local geriatric patients. This is very definitely not the view of the local doctors and the Galloway Executive Council. They point out that there are many local patients, some living in substandard cottages, who could well be accommodated in Laurieston if beds were available. At the time of the census, there were in fact several geriatric patients in Newton Stewart Hospital who came from the Glenkens. As I have said earlier, one cannot play general post with old people and Laurieston has to take the case which is available when there is a vacancy. The provision of geriatric beds must be looked at taking the region as a whole.
The Glenkens is an area to which people retire and it therefore has an ageing population. One local doctor tells me that his practice has 33 per cent. more patients over 65 than the national average.
The Under-Secretary has been told that Laurieston is not well served by public transport. Few places in the country now are, but, to be realistic, many people now have their own cars and are prepared to take someone who wants to visit an old relative six or seven miles in the evening after work. It is quite a different matter if the evening run is to be

40 miles each way to Lochmaben. Then the use of public transport becomes inevitable. With the changes of buses involved, the journey to Lochmaben could not be made by public transport to coincide with after-7 p.m. visiting hours, and I am doubtful if it could be done at any time on Sundays. If the Under-Secretary thinks Laurieston is inconveniently situated, he must see that Lochmaben is infinitely worse for most patients from Galloway.
I want to address myself now to the Under-Secretary's other points; namely, that Laurieston is outdated, needs substantial capital expenditure and is a fire risk. I feel that the fire risk weighs heaviest in his mind. There was a tragic fire recently at an English hospital and there have been one or two bad cases in Glasgow in recent years in warehouses and factories.
Laurieston is a 19th century solid, stone-built house, no more liable to catch fire, in my submission, than any other house of its character. Most of the patients are ambulant and all of them sleep on the ground floor. I believe that the Under-Secretary has been told that Laurieston is the worst fire risk in the hospital board's region. I simply do not believe it when there are hospitals of which I know that are of much the same date and construction on two or more floors, but with no fire- or smoke-proof doors and crammed to the gunwales with bedridden patients.
The staff at Laurieston have fire-fighting equipment and are most fire conscious. They have had the local fire brigade inspector round more than once and he has had no special observations to make. All the patient areas have emergency exits, some in the form of French windows to the garden. Indeed to provide all the bedrooms with exits to the outside would involve only two more French windows—hardly a crippling capital expense. I hope that the Under-Secretary will explain why he considers Laurieston an exceptional fire risk and how, to quote the Fire Precautions Bill, the means of escape are not reasonable in the circumstances of the case. There seems no substance whatever in the Board's allegation.
Of course, Laurieston is out-dated when compared with a purpose-built new hospital, but the accommodation is quite


adequate for the limited purpose it serves and certainly adequate with a few running repairs till 1974. It is unlikely to fall down, as happened two or three years ago to a hospital in Glasgow. It is a mystery how the technical officers of the hospital board arrived at a figure of £20,000 needing to be spent on it. This figure should be scrutinised. I am told that one could double the accommodation for half this sum. Of course, if one allows for re-roofing the house, putting in new boilers, making generous allowances for dry rot, the presence of which has never been observed, one can arrive at virtually any figure one likes.
I turn now to the position of the staff. In his letter to me the Under-Secretary said:
All those who wish it will be offered alternative employment.
No doubt this is true, but I wonder if he realises what the phrase conceals. It is easy enough to offer alternative employment in a city, but many members of the staff are local women who act as nursing orderlies. No doubt "if they wish it", they can be moved to Lochmaben 40 miles away, but what about married women whose husbands and families work in the Laurieston district? The Under-Secretary cannot offer them alternative work. In the Laurieston district many men work for the Forestry Commission and there is no alternative work for their wives, even if they have nursing qualifications. The offer of alternative employment for the staff at Laurieston is a hollow one.
Before concluding I want to touch on the more general question of hospital beds in Galloway. We know there are no more geriatric beds to be provided if Laurieston closes. The pressure must therefore come on general practitioner beds in hospitals like Newton Stewart and Castle Douglas. Surely the hospital board does not contemplate moving old people from as far away as Wigtownshire to Lochmaben? This would be thoroughly reprehensible. Already the board's own figures are of an occupancy rate at Newton Stewart of 97 per cent. I know for example of a patient who has had to wait 3½ years for a bed there to have a simple operation for varicose veins.
The board's figures for beds needed were calculated in 1963–64 on the assumption that Laurieston would stay

open. Since then there has been another radical change of circumstance. I refer to the explosion of holiday visitors. One doctor's normal list of 2,000 patients swells to 7,000 or 8,000 for a short period in the summer. The majority of visitors live in tents, caravans or houses offering bed and breakfast, which are quite unsuitable for the treatment of illness. There are unfortunately more traffic accidents as well. I have got the figures of visitors taken ill over the last 10 years. It is a sharp progression. In 1960 the figure was 2,866. In 1965 it was 4,111, and in 1970 it is an estimated 5,947.
By 1974, when Dumfries Hospital is at last available to take the strain this projection may well throw up double the number of tourists needing hospital beds compared with 1963–64, when the board's plans were made. Against these figures, the closure of Laurieston seems even more incomprehensible.
The Under-Secretary will know that the closure is opposed by both town councils in the area, by the local newspaper The Galloway News, the Galloway Executive Council and also by the local people. When a petition was organised before the closure was announced, it attracted 500 signatures, a very large number for the Glenkens, in three days. It was particularly unfortunate that the hospital board was not able to have a meeting to hear the views of the medical executive council until six weeks after the closure had been announced. This is a great pity, because it is in the interests of the community at large that the three branches of the Health Service achieve the maximum co-operation. I think the vehemence of the executive council's opposition must have been a surprise to the hospital board.
In his reply to a Parliamentary Question on 11th November the Under-Secretary said the decision would not be reconsidered unless new circumstances arose of which he was not aware at the time of the decision. I submit that I have brought to his notice a plethora of new circumstances. The case against Laurieston has been vastly exaggerated. It is not out-dated, it is not a special fire risk, it is not inconveniently situated, and it does not need a substantial capital expenditure. Its closure would result in hardship to old people and a serious strain on the available hospital beds in


Galloway. The original decision of the Hospital Board to keep Laurieston till 1974 ought to be adhered to.

11.34 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Health and Education, Scottish Office (Mr. Edward Taylor): I welcome the opportunity presented by the initiative of my hon. Friend the Member for Galloway (Mr. Brewis) to explain the background to the Laurieston Hospital case. My hon. Friend has concentrated on questions about the location and conditions at the hospital, the consultations undertaken by the hospital authorities about the closure, and the arrangements made for the staff. I shall deal with these points as fully as I can.
Much of the alarm locally seems to stem from a belief that Laurieston Hospital is occupied primarily by local people and they are going to be transferred en masse from their homes and friends to Lochmaben Hospital 40 miles away. There is also a belief that this is being done, not for any valid, objective reason, but merely to satisfy some remote administrative convenience. If any of these fears had been justified I can assure my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State and I would never have agreed to the proposal.
In looking at the question of convenience, there are two aspects to be considered. The first is how convenient the hospital is at present to the local community and to the patients in it, and the second is whether the alternative accommodation to be provided in the event of closure will be as convenient to the communities and individuals affected. As my hon. Friend has said, it is the hospital authority's view that over the years it has found difficulty in filling the places at Laurieston with local people—and indeed, at counts in March and April of this year only five or six people could be regarded as being local. The majority of patients came from further afield—from Dumfries and beyond, even as far away as Troon.
This—and the advice of my medical advisers who have visited the hospital and discussed its operation with the consultant in geriatric medicine for the area—goes a long way towards confirming the hospital authority's claim that because

of the relative absence of any local demand for hospital accommodation in Laurieston it has had to fill up beds with people from much further afield.

Mr. Brewis: Is my hon. Friend aware that nobody in the district has been able to find the patient from Troon?

Mr. Taylor: I shall check on what my hon. Friend says, but the advice that I have is that we have a patient from Troon.
Complementary to this question whether the hospital is fulfilling a primarily local need is the question whether, when the hospital is closed, the existing patients will be better or worse off, in terms of convenience. It is on this issue that we seem to have failed to convince local people that what is involved is not a wholesale transfer of patients without regard to age, home or their clinical condition, to Lochmaben, 40 miles away. I repeat that if this had been the case my right hon. Friend and I would not have agreed to the closure—and I am sure that my Department would not have recommended us to do so. Indeed, the hospital authorities have assured us and the local people that they will do what they can to accommodate local people locally, and I think that they have fulfilled this promise.
Only yesterday I obtained an up-to-date list from the Dumfries and Galloway Board of Management of where it is suggesting the patients might go on the closure. This list has been prepared after full discussions between the patients at the hospital and the consultant in geriatric medicine, and it reflects in almost all cases the expressed preference of the patients, having regard to the convenience of the hospitals to relatives and friends. Perhaps the most significant feature of this list is that all the five Lower Glenkens area residents are being offered places at Castle Douglas Hospital.
I am glad to be able to take the opportunity of announcing that the hospital authorities have agreed to make available five more beds for geriatric patients at Castle Douglas without—I emphasise this—encroaching in any way on the general practitioner beds. Instead, beds are being reallocated from general surgery—where the statistics suggest that there has been over-provision; for example, during one six-months' period last year the occupancy


rate was less than 20 per cent. This reallocation is not permanent, but will be reviewed in the light of experience in both general surgery and geriatric medicine. I am sure, however, that my hon. Friend will note with satisfaction the fact that these new geriatric beds are now to be provided.
No one, I am sure, will dispute that patients will be much more conveniently placed at Castle Douglas for visits than they were at Laurieston, and the same is true of virtually all the other patients who are being accommodated in the hospitals of their choice. I do not think that there is any justification for the remark that the closure would result in hardship to old people.
My hon. Friend suggested that the hospital was not a particularly high fire risk, and that there was no real need for the expenditure of the £20,000 or so estimated by the technical officers of the board of management and the regional board as being necessary.
I think that this is a question essentially for technically qualified people, but the firm advice of the board of management to the regional hospital board was that capital expenditure of this order would be necessary. If a hospital had a long-term future of course £20,000 is a relatively small sum, but in the light of the fact that the estimated maximum life of the building as a hospital was only four or five years the hospital authorities obviously had to look critically at the need to incur such expenditure.
It was felt by the technical officers of both boards, who made independent assessments, that, even for the short-term life ahead of it, the hospital would need new boiler plant, re-routing of mains, and rewiring of electrical services. It would also need expenditure on the hot water system and on improving the sanitary annexes. I have no reason to disbelieve the advice of the two different groups of technical officers. I should add that the regional board's officers' view was that the estimate was a conservative one. One of my medical officers who visited the building was in no doubt that it should be vacated as soon as possible.
My hon. Friend also asked why the hospital was regarded as a fire risk when all the patients are on the ground floor. I must straight away say that I am not aware that I have ever been told that

Laurieston is the worst fire risk in the Regional Board's area. I have said that it is a fire risk and that money would have to be spent to reduce the risk. I am sure that my hon. Friend will agree that, although the potential fire risks in two hospitals may be very similar, much depends, too, on the location of the building and the type of patient. The consequences of a fire in a remote rural hospital with geriatric patients and part-time staff could be far more disastrous than in a similar hospital with a larger staff in the centre of the community.
The Western Regional Hospital Board in recent years has devoted much attention to the problems of fire in hospitals. In fairness to the board I should say that it did not say to me that Laurieston was the worst fire risk in the region, but nonetheless it is its view that there is a fire risk in the hospital and expenditure would be necessary to reduce this.
I should say that neither the condition of the building itself nor the inherent fire dangers would themselves have been sufficient justification for the closure if it had not been that the long-term intention was to close the building on the completion of the Dumfries District General Hospital, and in the light of this it was thought that the expenditure of £20,000 would not be justified for continuing the life of the building for another four or five years.
I want now to touch on the question of consultations about which my hon. Friend and I had a brief exchange at Question Time on 11th November. The regional hospital board consulted the local health authorities in the area—the three county councils and Dumfries Town Council—and none of them objected, although there were patients from each authority's area in the hospital. We rely on the local authorities to give us a "consumer's" point of view on proposals such as that of the closure, in their capacity not only as local health authority but also as the elected representatives for the area. The regional hospital board also consulted the executive councils for Dumfries and Galloway and here, too, we thought that there were no objections in principle. The Galloway Executive Council recorded the view of the local medical committee that—


With the closure of Laurieston Hospital it is desirable that additional beds should be provided at the peripheral hospitals over and above the present complement to accommodate geriatric patients as near as possible to their own homes without encroaching on the existing general practitioner beds.
I know that there is a local feeling that the views of the executive council were disregarded or, even worse, misrepresented to us when my right hon. Friend and I considered the closure proposal. It may be that there has been some misunderstanding about what the executive council intended to say in reply to the request from the regional board, but there is no doubt that the impression given to the hospital authorities, my Department and myself from the letter of October 1969—I have a copy here—was that the Council did not oppose the Laurieston closure in principle but was concerned about the general question of the availability of general practitioner beds throughout the area.
We knew that the regional board were discussing this with the executive council and, as we had not regarded its observations as having been in any way an objection in principle, we did not feel that we should necessarily delay any decision about the closure until the completion of the discussions. A meeting was arranged in June but was called off by the executive council. However, I understand that at the meeting held last week the regional board assured the executive council representatives that there was no question of closing any other small hospitals in the area other than those indicated in its 1966 Review of Hospital Services in the South West, and these closures, if approved by the Secretary of State, would not take place until the Dumfries District General Hospital opens. The regional hospital board were able to say to the executive council members that five more beds were being made available at Castle Douglas Hospital for geriatric patients without any encroachment on the existing general practitioner beds.
It may be that the executive council intended, in effect, to oppose the closure of Laurieston unless more beds were made available elsewhere, but this was not evident from the tone of their letter. I am sorry if there was any misunderstanding, and I hope that it has now been resolved.
I should like to deal also with the representations received from the local people. A petition against the closure of the hospital was organised in the Glenkens area by my hon. Friend's constituent, Mr. Sillar. It was signed by 500 people. The petitioners argued that the expenditure required for the maintenance of the building would be well repaid by the resulting satisfaction of the local people. I understand, too, that in the spring of this year my hon. Friend discussed the petition with my predecessor in office, who assured him that all closure proposals were considered personally by the Secretary of State. I can give him the same assurance, that no closure is authorised without the proposal being personally considered by the Secretary of State and myself.
My hon. Friend asked, in effect, what was meant by the phrase "alternative employment". He suggested that it meant very little in the situation of Laurieston because of the difficulties of travel elsewhere. I gather from the board of management that of the 22 staff now in post 17, after discussion about their preferences, are about to be offered alternative employment in Kirkcudbright, Castle Douglas and Dumfries hospitals; all are being offered either their first or second preference.
Of the remaining five, one, the matron, is retiring next month; two, the porter and his wife, are remaining at the hospital for the time being for caretaking duties; and two ladies may well opt for redundancy payment.
I can appreciate that any change of job can be upsetting for the staff, particularly if they are local people who are now faced with longer journeys to work; and I am glad to say that the hospital authorities have agreed to make a hospital vehicle available to help them in travelling to their new jobs until the future of Laurieston Hospital premises is resolved. The caretaker of the hospital will act as the driver.
It has been suggested also that the closure is being rushed and there might be a case for deferring it. With respect, I dispute the suggestion that we are rushing the closure. There have been discussions about it for the last eighteen months, and there has been ample time


for everyone to put his view. Our decision to approve the closure was announced in October, and the board of management has now suggested that it take effect in January. I think that by then there will have been three months' notice of the fact that the hospital is definitely to close, and almost two months' notice of the precise date. I should have thought that this was reasonable.
My hon. Friend asked whether the announced closure date could be deferred to some time after 18th January, the date which the board of management has announced. I do not see any great advantage in this. I do not think that there is any likelihood of new facts coming forward between now and then which might affect the decision taken by my right hon. Friend and myself. We are satisfied that the case made out by the hospital authorities for the closure on the ground that substantial capital expenditure would be needed to refit it for continued occupation is valid, and we are satisfied that the patients in general will be better off as a result of the proposed transfer to other hospitals in the area. Further delays will merely prolong the uncertainty with no clear benefits and we should aim to have the patients safely accommodated elsewhere before the worst part of the winter is on us.
I can assure my hon. Friend that if there is any difficulty about evacuating the patients on 18th January because of severe weather the hospital authorities will be ready to delay the closure for a few days until weather conditions improve—so there should be no danger of any ambulances being stuck in snow drifts or otherwise impeded.
It would be wrong if, as a result of what has been said about the closure of Laurieston Hospital, any impression was created that the hospital was in any way unsatisfactory from the point of view of patient care as opposed to accommoda-

tion and I would like to pay tribute to the work of the staff in the hospital and at the board of management. From the local reaction it is obvious that Laurieston creates a happy and pleasant atmosphere for the old people who are accommodated in it and, in the circumstances, this can only have been achieved by the enthusiasm and co-operation of all concerned in the running of the hospital.
It may seem unfortunate to local people that a pleasantly situated building of this kind should be withdrawn from service as a hospital but I am satisfied that in this case the expenditure required to maintain it satisfactorily would not be justified, taking account of its location and likely future.
It is not however my, or the Western Regional Hospital Board's policy to centralise hospital services solely for the sake of reducing the number of small hospitals. The cottage hospitals—and Laurieston would not be classified as one of these—will remain an important feature of the hospital service particularly in the South-West and the aim will be to provide bed facilities for patients of most kinds within reasonable distance of their homes.
I must conclude, too, by saying how much I appreciate my hon. Friend's interest in health matters and I know how interested he has been over the years in the development of the hospital and other health services in the South-West.
He certainly has fought hard in this case and I must say in all sincerity that if anyone could have influenced the Laurieston decision he was the man, by the painstaking way in which he has pursued these matters. I am only sorry that to us the case for closure seems to be so very strong.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nine minutes to Twelve o'clock.